Correspondence Guitar Lessons Student Feedback

"When I came to Tom for online guitar lessons, I already had a decent overall level of technique and understood the basics of music theory pretty well. I had taken lessons with other teachers before, and went through several guitar method books that promised to teach me how to become a great lead guitar player. I learned all the materials in these books and courses and picked up some useful tips and knowledge along the way. Yet for some reason I still wasn't feeling like a musician. I struggled very much with writing my own songs, creating my own solos and pushing my guitar technique and speed to a higher level (especially sweep picking, alternate picking, and playing clean at high speeds).

When I started learning from Tom, the main thing that made him different from other teachers was that he was showing me how to excel in all aspects of my guitar playing by applying the skills that I already knew together with the new material that I was learning from him.

He made me aware of both strengths and weaknesses in my playing that I did not even know I had. From there he gave me the knowledge, tools and guidance to literally transform my guitar playing by enabling me to overcome things that were preventing me from becoming a truly creative and self-expressive guitar player. These were the kinds of things that none of my previous guitar teachers and books I studied were able to do for me.

After Tom made me aware of all the things I was missing in my guitar playing and provided me with the strategy and tools for solving them, I began to make very fast progress in all areas of my guitar playing.

I can now write my own music and can create lead guitar solos that I am happy and fulfilled with. I also have the technical skills to confidently and easily play anything that I want to express. I have overcome all of the lead guitar challenges that I struggled with before, and increased my guitar speed to virtuoso levels. More importantly, I have the knowledge and understanding of how to continually improve my guitar playing and musical skills to higher and higher levels to continue expressing myself with my music. Overall, I have definitely transformed in a huge way as a musician and as a person through my lessons with Tom Hess. I am grateful to him for guiding me towards becoming the guitarist I always wanted to be!"

Mike Philippov, Indiana, USA

“I started out learning by myself, and as many others, I got stuck and I had a few issues I wanted to get by. When I met Tom Hess, and talked with him and started lessons with him, he opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what guitar playing can be. I feel very very very grateful that I found lessons from Tom because I then did what worked from the very beginning.”

Many guitarists I see have played way longer than I did and have built up so many bad habits. With Tom, from the very start, there were clear instructions of how to practice correctly so you build up the ability for high speed or whatever you want from the very beginning and you don't waste time doing inefficient things.

Magnus Gautestad, Norway

“The amount of knowledge and practical, straight-to-the-point instruction that I've gotten from Tom's lessons, it's just such a wealth of useable stuff that Tom will cram into every lesson.”

What I found to be really great was the fairly extensive application. You fill out a questionnaire and he really does do a great job of assessing where you are, what your personal goals are and I do feel like every single item I get as part of a lesson is exactly focused on where I want to be as a player. It's almost overwhelming where I feel like I can't keep up with this stuff but it's so good! So I go through it at my pace and find ways to use everything, which is great!

Jesse Froebel, Texas, USA

“Before I started online guitar lessons with Tom, I was basically stagnant in my playing, I kind of reached a pinnacle, and I started looking for what's next, what's bigger and better. Tom has helped me tremendously, I know I can do things on the guitar that I could have never dreamed of 5 years ago.”

The biggest change that has happened since taking lessons with Tom is playing like a true musician & kind of separating myself from all the wannabes. Tom's lessons are easy-to-understand, very in-depth and tailored to what YOU want to learn versus private teachers who are often using their students as guinea pigs trying to figure out how to teach. Tom knows what he's doing! He's an ordinary guy, but he's doing extraordinary things.

Ty Morgan, Arizona, USA

“It is hard to compare Tom and his teaching to any other guitar teacher out there. His knowledge and technique are unbelievable. It is ridiculous to see how much better of a musician I have become.”

My technique and speed have drastically improved and my knowledge of music theory and other related things have grown to levels that I would never have been able to reach without his help. Tom's teaching methods are so incredible and helpful. His great playing inspires me to work harder at all the musical areas I am studying.

“My experience with Tom has been outstanding, he has been the best teacher I had. Tom had exactly the kind of information that I needed to break a barrier in my playing.”

I’ve improved quite a bit, the initial problem that I was most frustrated with was that I had reached a peak on my speed and Tom has really helped me blow the lid off of that. I’ve now probably doubled my practical playing speed and I’m very pleased with the results.

I feel a lot more confident with my guitar playing, I can do things that I couldn’t have done before the guitar lessons online with Tom.

Chad Crawford, South Carolina, USA

“Tom Hess’ Online Guitar Lessons are amazing. I really feel a lot of support from the lessons and the forum.”

Tom really wants you to exceed, and as a world class virtuoso he knows exactly what the next step for is you. He keeps on pushing you to greater levels, lesson after lesson. Before I started online guitar lessons with Tom Hess, I was an intermediate player, now I can really feel how I will totally dominate as a blues guitar player and an upcoming force in the music industry. Thanks a lot, Tom!

“When I found Tom’s site, I had a few things in mind that I wanted to accomplish. I saw in him that he had a lot of the abilities technically that I wanted to develop. And I could tell from his articles and his thinking that he was really studied up on many of the concepts that I wanted to learn as well.”

So I started and what happened is, you always end up getting MORE than you expect and that is a very pleasant surprise. In addition with the Correspondence Guitar Lessons, you get access to a private forum that is FULL of people who are EXCITED about learning and love to share and help other people out. There is absolutely, without any doubt, no forum that can beat the Hess forum when it comes to support.

Randy Johnson, Ohio, USA

“Tom Hess is truly a master at what he does! The lessons I have received are excellent in content!”

Musically I am seeing a progression in techniques that had taken months and months on my own with very little forward progress. Now I am moving forward and becoming more and more confident in my playing and attitude! A HUGE IMPACT! Great stuff and very inspirational!

Tevis Maloney, Arizona, USA

“You’ve taught me 10,000% more in the last 1½ years than I had learned in the prior 15 years before that being “self taught”. I’m able to do things now that I thought I’d never be able to do, that were just waaaay out of my reach."

Scotty Woodward, Virginia, USA

“The Correspondence Guitar Lessons with Tom are fantastic! He was able to teach me in 10 months what nobody was able to teach me in 10 years practically. Really precise and focused and what I asked him to teach me. I’ve seen other students basically changing their lives, and I wanted to be part of it! It’s fantastic!”

Originally, I read one of Tom’s articles and I knew this guy knew his stuff. I said, ok, I don’t care what style this guy plays, I don’t care who he is, HE HAS IT... and I want it! I just want to study with him!

The genius of Tom is, he is not just teaching one thing, but he found a way to put it all together in a coherent ‘system’. It works!

I had been studying on my own at that point... I had been studying on my own for about 5 years, and from other guitar teachers really hadn’t gotten anywhere as a guitarist whatsoever. And Tom Hess got me more results in the first couple months than I’d had in all those previous years, so basically everything that Tom Hess is delivering since then has been consistent with that. So, he’s got proven results.

Leo Smith, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

“I've played guitar for several years and I think I've taken it as far as I could take it and I was going on the internet and found Tom, I take Correspondence Guitar Lessons from him and I have to say it was the best thing that I've ever could have done. There is nothing better than Correspondence Guitar Lessons with Tom.”

Tom has the innate ability to hone in on whatever problems you have and immediately fix it for you. The lessons are very goal oriented, very detailed and Tom is very approachable. I consider Tom to be a master teacher. A master teacher is someone who cares about their students, who talks to their students, who shares with their students and gets them to the place that they need to be as a guitar player. And Tom, I will tell you, does all of that and more.

Rovan Deon, Rahway, NJ, USA

“I found Tom Hess on the net through articles, and I read quite a few of those before I went to Tom’s website. Even though I’m not a metal player at all, and Tom is obviously a metal player, I could still see that his ideas and way of teaching could really benefit me. So I pretty much signed up for online guitar lessons with Tom straight away once I’d gone through the website, and it’s just been a real eye opener with the way he teaches…”

... the integration of concepts that he’ll give you and having a really structured strategy… not just week to week lessons, but things that - you can see from one lesson to the next - really develop and continue to work on your technique and your theory and aural skills and those types of things. So I’d played a long time… 20 years before I really caught onto Tom, and I’d had a lot of lessons, and I’d taught and played but I can really see improvements in my technique, sweeping, and picking which weren’t strong parts of my playing.

I feel like Tom has a good gauge of where you’re at as a guitar player and what you need, and there just seemed to be so much more stuff in the lessons week to week than what you’d ever get in an hour or so in a one on one lesson… way more. So yeah I think that and the forum. I think, I’d pay the money just for the forum. That alone would be fine… I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. So that alone is massive!

The price for the lessons, that’s nothing... nothing. You know, I think it’s, pretty cheap to be honest. I don’t mean that in a bad way, cheap. Cheap is not a good word, but I just think it’s great value… awesome value. I mean, you know, you could pay that for one-to-one lessons and you just don’t get the same results and support of the forum and the content and the strategies.

Other teachers I’ve had have been good players, and some have become good friends too. But when I’ve started lessons with Tom I’ve got something to compare that to and a lot of it is just sort of teaching songs from week to week… a lot of the lesson will be left up to you… you’ll go to your lesson and they’ll be like what do you want to do today? At the time I said, oh do this song or that song, but with Tom you start to realize that you know, there’s more to it… the goals and you know he’s sort of more in contact with what you want to be able to do as a player, because he’s asking you the questions and then setting up the strategies, so I find that really good.

Yeah I can see more results in 18 months in a lot of areas in my playing than you know 20 years. So it’s sort of, you know, would’ve been great 20 years ago to have met Tom.

Simon Candy, Melbourne, Australia

“I was self-taught, and I thought I am so good because I can do this by myself. I wasn’t looking for a teacher but I knew I was looking for something on the internet, and Tom’s lessons came up. I knew instantly that was the way to go. ”

Tom assigns the lessons based on the hundreds of questions you have to answer before you get to be a student. It’s just amazing how he does it. Every single PDF I received has been such a good value. I know if I practice exactly what he says I cannot fail. It helped me realize I can become whatever I want to become. Just set my goal and I know his lessons and way of teaching will get me there eventually. So far so good... I’ll continue doing this as long as possible, and eventually I’ll become a professional player. I’d just like to thank Tom, he’s so thorough, so professional and such a great teacher... and a good person. I want to keep on working with him.

Sigve Solbakken, Bergen, Norway

“The materials of the Correspondence Guitar Lessons are nothing like I've ever seen before. You're not going to get any more material from a regular guitar teacher. Tom just goes above and beyond with the amount of knowledge that he puts into the lessons, it's just incredible.”

I've become a better guitar player from taking Correspondence Guitar Lessons, no doubt about it. Tom's lessons are WAY better than taking private lessons.

Tom knows the end result of where you want to be and he knows how to get there.

Matthew Ruggiero, Rhode Island, USA

“The lessons with Tom are great! I've learned a lot of things in a short amount of time.”

I don't have time to mess around, I have to get going as fast as I can. Whenever I get a correspondence lesson, there is always more in there than you can imagine. The materials are ALWAYS over and above expectations.
Tom does a great job with that and I'm glad I made the decision to take lessons with him.

Maurice Richard, Nova Scotia, Canada

“Before correspondence guitar lessons with Tom Hess, I was very very frustrated."

I’ve been a self-taught guitar player for 3 and half years. And then I got offline lessons for a year… a year and a half. I grew very dissatisfied with those lessons.

Tom Hess’s goal-orientated approach has helped me more than any other guitar teacher that I had in the past, because I had never even heard of the term goals in relation to guitar playing. My offline teachers would never mention this phrase and it wouldn’t even occur to me that setting goals was something that I should be doing, because it would actually force me to try to achieve things. So that was a bit of culture shock, but I’ve really gained from that because I now have a very good idea of what to practice... and if I practice it, I’m going to achieve my goals. So Tom Hess’s goal-orientated approach has vastly… vastly improved my guitar playing.

Michael Hanna, Larne, United Kingdom

“Before the online guitar lessons, I had a lot of trouble with phrasing. I couldn’t make good note choices, I was always fishing for the next note. I was trying to think of ways that I could play, but it didn’t sound good. I didn’t know how to write songs, it was absolutely terrible, everything sounded the same. I couldn’t really… I didn’t feel confident with my playing. I definitely couldn’t build speed for anything, I was really sloppy and I was dissonant… and it was really painful to play.”

I chose Tom Hess because when I read his articles they blew my mind away. I got so much out of that, that I didn’t get anywhere else.

The main reason I like taking lessons with Tom online is because, number one: yes it was the personalized lessons strategy… I read everything about it, and it was so compelling, just like that he really takes everything that I can or can’t do into account, and then he’ll take what I want to be able to do and then basically map out every step of the way until I get there. And that was just really powerful, and that I’d be able to get feedback every 6 weeks, and the fact that we’ve got the forum. We’ve got instant help and they all really know what they’re talking about… they’re not just like anybody… they… I mean some of them are virtuoso guitar players... I mean, they know their stuff and then of course the mindset of this whole environment. The friends I’ve made here just… I can’t really put into words.

I didn’t have a budget when I started. I had a good enough job that I could take lessons for however long I wanted, so that wasn’t a problem, but I feel like I’ve gotten 100 times what I paid you know.

Matteo Miller, San Diego, California, USA

“My lessons with Tom have been brilliant, my playing has gone up a lot, the amount of things I have to work on, especially things that you wouldn't get with a typical teacher, have helped immensely, things like ear training, improvisation, just a lot of things you wouldn't learn from a standard teacher, that has made a huge difference.”

It's been very fulfilling, I'm sort of beginning to be able to express myself creatively with the guitar.

The key is the quality of the lessons that Tom gives with his experience and background versus what I've had with other teachers, it's a lot more organized, it's a lot more structured. The stuff I've done with Tom just moves you forward a lot faster.

Jeremy Boyes, London, UK

“I first have been skeptical, but after a month of doing the lessons, I made more progress in that month than I would say the previous 5 months - just from that one first lesson!”

Tom has really kicked my ass to really motivate me to actually practice, work really hard on this, and I've seen the results from that.

Matt Waldner, Professional Musician, Minnesota, USA

“Before I found Tom to take online guitar lessons, I was exposed to a lot of information, but it wasn’t necessarily in the right order. So, Tom is the teacher who saw what my weaknesses were just by answering simple questions and was able to get me the information I needed in the order that it was supposed to be learned in.”

Tom knows my weak points so he provides lessons to, not turn them into strengths, but just make them so they’re not my main weakness. Without that I don’t I would be anywhere near the level that I am today.

Rhythmically it’s definitely more solid… I can manipulate rhythm more to what I hear in my head. I had a tendency to just naturally write things in time signatures that aren’t common like 4/4 time, and besides rhythm, just theory in general. For around a decade or so I played without any traditional lessons, so I didn’t have any knowledge of theory or why stuff that I thought sounded good, sounded good. So he’s kind of given me the tools to know why what I like sounds good.

Derek Rush, Indiana, USA

“I can now play things that I would never have dreamed I would be able to play when I started - and I'm hungry for more. :) I can say, unless I lose one of my hands, I will never stop taking Correspondence Guitar Lessons with Tom.”

He's giving me so much value, so much guidance... it's amazing.

I was progressing much faster with the Correspondence Guitar Lessons than with any other things I did before. It's more important to get the right things in the right moment than a lot of materials that you'll never apply.

“Before I took lessons with Tom Hess, I wanted to learn how to do some sweep picking and I also wanted to fill in a few gaps that I thought I might’ve had in my playing. And also I was feeling a little bit frustrated with not knowing where to take my playing. I didn’t really know how to get better. I felt like I reached a plateau, so that’s why I sought out Tom.”

I’ve had a few other guitar teachers before I took lessons with Tom, and most of them weren’t very good. And after reading a few articles online that Tom had written, I could tell that this guy was going to be the teacher for me.

The biggest thing that I really like is the actual guitar lessons themselves. I’m finding that I’m learning new things that I never even considered every single time I get a lesson. Something new to apply to my playing each time. But of course, I really enjoy the forum as well, because thanks to the lessons with Tom, I’ve been able to meet people from all over the world who have similar experiences and similar goals, so that’s been really motivating as well.

Before I took lessons with Tom I really didn’t like improvisation. I knew scales, and I knew kind of how they applied over chord progressions, but I just didn’t like it. Since taking lessons with Tom, some of the lessons are focused on that specific issue, and now I feel really comfortable about getting up in front of people and playing over any type of… in any key any backing track, I feel pretty comfortable doing that.

Tom actually knows what my goals are and gives me specific lessons that will help me achieve those goals. Other teachers that I’ve had before just do it their way… it’s either their way or the highway. And they don’t really care about what I wanted to do, and they didn’t really listen, and they didn’t really look into what I was doing or what my interests were and didn’t really play into that.

It’s really motivating to get to know people who are also students of Tom. It’s really good to have positive-minded musicians around even if I’m just talking to them online, or if I meet them in person, either way it’s still really motivating.
The forum has helped me because I am able to ask any music theory related questions or technique questions and I get those answered very very quickly. And I also like to participate in discussions and help share my knowledge as well with other people, which when I do that I feel that it’s reinforcing the things that I know as well, so it helps with my music theory knowledge when I share as well.

Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia

“If it wasn't for Tom's strategies, I would never have been able to pursue a full career in music. I always wanted to play on a very high level, but I always doubted my abilities, because if you don't have a teacher who constantly reinforces this positive mindset...you need a teacher who is telling you that you are able to do that and at the same time giving you the tools to actually accomplish those high levels.”

Correspondence Guitar Lessons are excellent, because Tom always brings something fresh, every time Tom blows your mind with a new lesson. You can never learn this stuff on your own, it's impossible, because you don't know what you don't know.

George Engelbrecht, Guitar Teacher, Vredenburg, South Africa

“Before I started taking lessons with Tom, I was doing things on my own and it was quite frustrating. I thought I was doing things correctly, but once I started lessons with Tom, I was able to see what I was doing wrong and quickly applied that and got results instantly, within a couple of weeks ... your playing just improves so quickly!”

I've become a hundred of times better guitar player since I've been working with Tom. Most private guitar teachers are somewhat unprepared and kind of work on just whatever, which is ok, but it isn't really as effective as the way Tom does it in terms of how much material he gives you, what material he gives you, and the long term goal of what you want to do. Tom has all that in mind. Tom is very good at giving you what you need to reach your goals.

Mark Court, Professional Musician,
Ontario, Canada

“My experience with the Correspondence Guitar Lessons has been really good. I can tell that I've made a lot of progress.”

In previous lessons that I had with other instructors, the lessons were never really clear. It was more like, you know, come in, bring in some music, let's learn how to play your favorite songs... it wasn't about becoming a musician. With Tom and the Correspondence Guitar Lessons, I'm noticing that I'm just learning so much more about music in general and I don't really worry about covering other people's music, I'm just sitting there and belting out whatever I'm feeling.
It's been a HUGE growth experience.

Jason Harrington, Illinois, USA

“I always had the impression that you should start young as a guitar player to become really good, but Tom really changed that. If you put quality practice time into your guitar playing, it will benefit you no matter what.”

Tom really has a structured approach, so he doesn't let you float, he has a plan to bring you to the next level while with other teachers it was chaotic and you had to ask things yourself - and if you didn't, you wouldn't know. Tom really makes sure that you WILL reach the next level, because he plans everything for you.

Anton Lycklama A Nijeholt, Lelystadt, Holland

“If you have any doubts about the quality that you're going to get from Tom, just stop doubting and take a dive. It’s totally worth it.”

The online guitar lessons have taught me how to practice more effectively. They’ve given me a lot of specific techniques that I can use in my practicing on a daily basis that make me a better guitar player. But I’ll also say about the online guitar lessons that my actual ability on the guitar has expanded, not just in the things I already knew, but Tom is teaching me more stuff that’s expanding my ability and it kind of expanded my musical horizons as well... and I’ve been playing for 18 years, and have a masters degree in music, so it takes a lot to teach me something new... which Tom has been able to do.

Nicholas Anderson, Olympia, Washington, USA

“No matter what you think, you'll never get really really good on your own. Having specific goals with Tom and actually filling out the Evaluation Form, I was like 'yeah, that's what I want to start from'.”

All these other private teachers that I've been to, they were good players and stuff but they didn't have that personal touch to really focus on what YOU want to do. Tom will continuously mentor you through the lessons as well as show you how to play. :)

Jonah Kay, Kitchener, ON, Canada

“Tom is giving us so much material, there is so much stuff to work on. He has the experience of teaching thousands of students. I didn't know his music before, if I did, I would have jumped on the train a lot earlier, he is a fantastic player and everything he says about music, about creativity and being a virtuoso guitarist is true.”

The way the lessons are laid out is surprisingly smart. Tom always hits my needs. I know that if I work lesson by lesson and integrate these things into the next lesson, I know it's building up to a certain point... it's a fantastic resource.

Valentin Mayr, Oldenburg, Germany

“I've been working with Tom for just over a year. In the beginning, I had really sloppy guitar technique and I needed some help cleaning that up. I see Tom as a great mentor for helping me to reach my guitar and music goals.”

With Tom's approach I can work on several different things all at once and not feel like it's taking months and months to get through one technique, when there are other things I can be working on too.

Lori Simpson, Florida, USA

“Before I started taking lessons with Tom, I was with a local guitar teacher and even though he was a nice guy and taught me good stuff, I started to read more and more of Tom's articles and I started to realize what I was missing in my lessons.”

Then I looked at Tom's lessons and he seemed to have a system in place that would give you very organized and very effective results rather than going week to week learning a song or some special lick or trick that you never amount to anything.

Bryan Connolly, Oroville, CA, USA

“I just love guitar lessons with Tom, he literally takes the time to make a specific lesson plan and sends you lessons as you need it.”

My last lesson I took with a local guitar teacher before joining Tom, I was struggling with a sweep picking pattern, which was the 5 string root major, I was really struggling to get the rolling technique down. I took it to my guitar teacher and I was like “Help me with this, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” This is his exact phrase: “At high speeds, it doesn’t really matter if you can play it clean or not, no one can hear it anyway.” At that point, I was just like, “Ah man.” But thankfully, in that same message, he mentioned Tom’s name. Then the doors opened. That very night, I went home and looked at every single lesson Tom had, had my guitar in hand, every YouTube lesson on you know “correct motions”, “play this over chords”... just applied it instantly, and it was instant results within an hour... just from his free stuff. I was like, oh man, I’ve got to do lessons with this guy.

I remember when I first started out with lessons, I instantly jumped on the forum to greet myself, and it’s amazing how there’s like 30 responses. Just like, “Hi welcome.” and stuff... “Hi Dan, great musical tastes”. That made me feel really at home and welcomed into Tom’s forum and community. Every time I’ve had an issue when I was first starting out be it like theory or technique, there’s always been someone there who’s helped. Otherwise it could’ve been this potentially awkward process where I’d have to wait a whole week to get an answer from my teacher, who even then may not have answered it correctly and may have never solved it. Whereas there are guys on there who have been with Tom and have been through exactly what I’ve been through. They know exactly how to help, in what order, what information you need... it’s just a friendly atmosphere really.

Dan Mayhew, Stowmarket, UK

“I wasn't really at the level I wanted to be at, and I didn't really know how to get there, and Tom just showed me the way, how to get to that level, how to practice properly, how to improve.”

Tom is a great teacher, he knows what he is talking about and he doesn't just, like a lot of other guitar teachers, teach songs. Tom tells me what to practice, what's good for me to practice. There is a lot of free stuff on the internet, but there is nobody really telling you what to do, what's good for you, and that's what Tom is great at. Tom just knows so much about teaching, he knows how to deal with all the problems. Other teachers are not able to help me in the way that Tom does.

Ike Biedermann, Guitar Teacher, Leipzig, Germany

“July of 2012, I had been managing in a retail store and was kind of reaching this point where I was really getting frustrated because I had been struggling to progress in my guitar playing. I had this mindset that I had to teach myself everything... you know and the best players are all self taught and stuff like that...”

...and I remembered Tom Hess from that book, and I said “You know, it’s time to look this guy up and see what he’s all about.” And it didn’t take me very long to figure out that this is the kind of person that I needed to get on board with.

My playing has definitely improved technique-wise, but probably the most important change I have experienced is just in my overall mindset as a player and as a practicing musician. I just feel like I have a much better frame of mind and a much better idea of where I am going and where my guitar practicing is taking me. Whereas before I just felt like I had to practice everything and I had a whole bunch of stuff going on. It’s a lot more focused now.

Being in the environment that Tom has created with his other students is incredibly motivating. I had always been in my own little shell, kind of just stayed on my own. Coming out here... like when I came out here last year was a big step out of my comfort zone. Getting around all these other musicians... it’s unbelievable how great some of these guys are, not just as players, but as people.

Andrew Tintle, Richmond, California USA

“I had problems with physical playing. I couldn’t hold the pick, I was struggling a lot, there was frustration for like years. I started out looking for a YouTube solution, maybe someone knows how to angle the pick or build up speed and accidentally ran into Tom.”

The video wasn’t about playing, he only had a conversation. I listened up to him. I saw that Tom made a lot of sense in his speech, and I got interested. I went to his site, started looking at what he offered, got very interested, filled out the form, got my first lesson, started building up myself and started getting more results than I was getting before when I was self taught. It was an amazing experience that opened up so many doors, and still there are so many doors to open.

The material is specifically done for your individual needs, to reach your goals. You can always put up new goals. You can have feedback on your playing, see your weak areas and strong areas. Tom cares a lot about his students. He always reviews and watches how I am progressing so we can review material, step by step. Not skipping the steps. He is paying attention to it, and that’s what I like about it. I last felt this kind of motivation when I was 13 and starting out with a band, now I’m feeling the same fire and passion. There are students who are more advanced, more knowledgeable and have more experience. Instead of feeling jealous, I feel much more motivated to push myself further.

Freddy Kuiva, Estonia

“When I met Tom, I knew that this is the guy. Just going through the evaluation form, all the questions, different questions, and he was digging deeper and deeper into all my goals and all that stuff... and no one has ever done that with me before, so I felt right away that this is the guy.”

The level that I was at before I went to Tom for lessons was that I could play pretty fast, I could play sloppy, I didn’t know nothing about music theory, so I was kind of unbalanced, I was uneven. I was a good player technically, but I knew very little about music theory. So I wanted to even that out, and Tom has helped me, not only evening that out, but also exceeding my expectations. So now I’m playing at a level that I didn’t expect that I could play at. So that’s... I’m very happy with that.

I like lessons with Tom because of the format basically. He gives a variety of formats... not just one format, like video for example, but also pdf files and audio files that you can take with you if you’re doing something else... you have to do labor that day, laundry or whatever... then you can listen to the sessions and while... you can actually benefit when you’re not even practicing, so it’s a no brainer.

Gottfrid Norberg Waxin, Sweden

“Before lessons with Tom, I had not had lessons too long with anyone. I was stumbling upon lots of difficulties like with areas of technique, theory and... I didn’t even know the things I had to invest time and effort into to. Basically I was always playing the same lick.”

Having lessons with Tom gives me a new eye-view from a lot of the things I never would have seen if I didn’t start the lessons with him. My technique has skyrocketed. My knowledge in theory, composition and improvisation has gone from zero to a place where I like where I am. I’d like to be much better in aspects of playing guitar, but in the moment I feel good with what I’ve learned. It makes me feel good.

Alan Ahrend, Canary Islands

“Before I started lessons with Tom, I had a couple of guitar teachers and in between those times, I tried to learn on my own and I had a very hard time understanding what I needed to do or keep my motivation levels high. I felt like I really wasn't going anywhere and I needed some direction.”

Tom helped me find direction in my playing again. I really like the online lessons because everything is in hard copy. Everything that Tom gives me, I can read over and over and over again as opposed to a teacher before who would maybe talk about something but I couldn't internalize it, I would forget about it by the time the next lesson came along.

Graeme Whitecross, Saskatoon, Canada

“I’d been trying to find a teacher for quite a while. I was self-taught. I prided myself on that. I think a lot of people do for a long time. I knew a teacher would get me there quicker... unfortunately, the teachers I tried out at various locations around the area... they’d either run out of material to show me or it wasn’t leading in a defined direction.”

I stumbled across Tom’s video on YouTube and it was immediately exactly what I wanted. I could tell by the questionnaire that I filled out that he was looking for a depth of knowledge of where my experience level was, so it was right up my alley. It was exactly what I was looking for. It’s awesome because I don’t know what I don’t know. He knows where I am at or can judge my experience level, bounce it off from a database in his head of other students he’s seen, and he can tell where I am through my playing.

Peter Birchenough, Belleville, Illinois, USA

“The lessons are great!”

They have a great structure, because they are so versatile, different areas are covered, so you can really approach many different areas at approximately the same level and then you grow at all these levels at the same time. Tom's Geometrical Approach™ is really great!

Mitja Zibert, Guitar Teacher, Slovenia

“Before I started taking correspondence lessons I was basically stagnant in my playing. I had kind of reached what I thought was a pinnacle and I started looking for what’s next, what’s bigger and better… and I just happened across Tom’s lessons and since then I’ve realized that this plateau that I was feeling was way down here and now he’s helped me tremendously. I know I can do things on the guitar that I could’ve never dreamed of five years ago.”

I chose to take guitar lessons with Tom over anybody else because a) Tom is a professional musician, and I want to learn from people who are making a living as a musician and b) he just had a wealth of knowledge that he freely gives to you to kind of say here, you know here is the golden nugget.

The biggest change in my playing that has happened since I started taking lessons with Tom is playing like a true musician, phrasing like a true musician, and kind of separating myself away from all the wannabes.

So if I were to compare Tom’s correspondence lessons with just taking private lesson in a local market, it’s night and day. For one thing, Tom’s lessons are easy to understand, they’re very in depth and they’re tailored to what you want to learn… versus private lessons, a lot of times the teachers are using their students as guinea pigs to figure out how to teach… and Tom’s not doing that, he’s knows what he’s doing.

Thoughts when I started with Tom were “Is this going to work for me?” because it was definitely not the norm. And my thoughts now are “Hell yes it’s going to work”, because you see results.

Tom’s goal-oriented approach has helped me, I guess break horizons and get results that I could’ve never gotten before. Only because he helped me flesh out how I want to play and how to get there. He gave the goals and the path to get there, and it’s been excellent. Tom is like he says, an ordinary guy, but he’s doing extraordinary things, and I know in my life that’s what I want to do. I just want to be an ordinary guy that is impacting lives, and that’s been huge from Tom.

Ty Morgan, Phoenix, Arizona

“I started playing guitar maybe about 15 years ago. I had a really crappy teacher. Basically, based on some bad advice I went to learn classical guitar. I mean I wanted to learn electric guitar, but my friends learned classical, then acoustic, then electric. So I foolishly went to the music school and said I want to learn classical guitar, but they never asked me why, what do I want to do, so they said yeah ok, here’s a guitar, let’s go.”

So after about a year of faking trying to learn music notation, I quit. But I really loved, music, the guitar, so, I’m a pretty creative person in general, so I just you know, came up with a whole bunch of stuff on the guitar. I was self-taught for many years, until I came across Tom’s website. And then what happened was… after reading all of his articles, I used his article on how to choose a guitar teacher, and I went around my local city in Kuala Lumpur, trying to find teachers based on that criteria and of course they couldn’t even meet one criterion. And I actually went for a few lessons, and after a while it was like, well, it’s not worth it, I’m just going to go with Tom.

He has a lot of freaking awesome students. I’ve been playing guitar for 15 years, I’ve been a correspondence student for about 5 years or 6 years, everything prior to that was just a waste of time.

The forum is beyond words. I mean, I ask a question and I get 20 responses or 10 responses from very helpful people. Everybody is trying to help there. Nobody is criticizing like anybody. Everybody is just so helpful. It’s like having 20 Tom Hesses. It’s like, you know… 20 mentors, 20 people… more than that actually. So I think the forum is awesome for that. Not only because of the information available there, but just because of the people willing to help.

Vishaal Kapoor, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

“I started lessons when I was a young kid. I was in school. I had a casual teacher, but he only taught us chords, like basic stuff if you want to learn like 3 chord songs. But I wanted more than that, so I went to a local guitar teacher. But he also gave me the same thing. But after like 5 or 6 years of lessons, like I found myself, like if I heard a backing track or something, I couldn’t play with someone. I mean I didn’t feel like a musician, I feel like someone who can just move his fingers from like fret 1 to fret whatever. But with Tom, he’s giving me the tools to become what I want to become, become the musician I want to become. And this is exactly what I want.”

Tom Hess was basically the only guy on the internet with the credentials and the reviews, and basically everyone recommended him. He even had his own students webpage. All his students were like established guitar teachers and professional musicians and they had their own sites and I contacted like 7 of them, and they all recommended Tom Hess, and that’s why I joined him.

I like taking lessons with Tom because he gives me what I want. It’s not like something general for everyone. Like if you want to learn blues, he gives you lessons for blues, but I want to become a metal player and also a neoclassical player, so he’s giving me exactly what I need and what I want. And if I have a problem I just post a thread on the amazing forum, and I get like answers, not just short answers, but really detailed answers. I feel like I am taken care of, I don’t have to worry about anything. If I just follow everything word for word what Tom gives me in all of the lessons, that’s if I have time, because they’re so big, I mean every lesson, people think it’s overpriced, but each lesson, if you want to master it, take everything out of it, is going to take you like 4 weeks of 2 hours of work every day.

Mohamed Karim Koleilat, Beirut, Lebanon

“I was watching YouTube videos and I was going nowhere. The direction Tom was sending me in my first lessons was towards my goals, so I could see that I was progressing. ”

Basically, after half a year of stumbling on YouTube videos or other guitar websites, I found that my guitar playing was not going into any direction and that changed massively because he actually got me to learn my scales and arpeggios... learn what I need to learn to get to the level I want to be. In a sense, I joined shortly after I started guitar playing, then improved massively in every way possible: rhythm, lead, improvisation. Before I tried Tom, I was noodling around the first pentatonic shape.

Patrick Kogler, Austria

“When I first heard about Tom Hess, I saw that he was a teacher that was very dedicated and serious about it, and that drew me in immediately. That this is a guy that has a plan, has a goal and really if you’re serious about learning guitar, this guy is equally as serious in a way. So it resonated with me straight away.”

I started out just learning by myself and as many others I got stuck. I had a few issues I wanted to get by, but when I met Tom and talked with him and started lessons with him, he opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what guitar playing can be.

I feel very grateful that I found lessons from Tom since I then did what worked from the very beginning. Many guitarists I see that played way longer than I did, they have build up many bad habits. That from the very start, there was clear instruction of how to practice correctly. You build the ability for high speed and whatever you want from the very beginning and you don’t waste time doing inefficient things. So I’m very grateful that I did that, and now I really feel I am able to reach whatever level I want.

The reasons why I think I feel so motivated all the time is because I know that the thing I’m working on is relevant for me and it’s exactly the direct thing I need to get.

The forum just kicks ass. The people in the forum - it’s just like unconditional help all the time. They love to help out, and you also get very inspired by seeing someone just really getting speed really quick and then you say if he can do it, I can do it. It works on the mental side of being a guitarist and that of course that’s the most important thing. Just being around other musicians like that, is just you learn so much faster, is so much less frustration when you can see that all the people are having the same issues that you do, not anything special or anything. It’s just part of learning process, so it kicks ass.

Magnus Gautestad, Norway

“Tom was my first guitar teacher ever. I started online guitar lessons a couple of years ago and it’s what I’ve been looking for. Someone who can really help me get what I want.”

Tom really puts it back on me to decide what I want and do what I need to do to get that. That’s what so many people need when they need help - they need to know how to help themselves.

There’s abundant resources. You can always get more information. You can always get more help, especially from other people, other students, members on the forum... Most of all, it’s an opportunity for me to help myself. That’s the goal.

When I pick up something that I haven’t played for a long time with my new technique... wow, it feels different. There are plenty of songs (I’ve always played in a cover band, so I know tons of songs). There are songs I haven’t played for 5, 10, 15, 20 years... and if I pulled them up and played them, they would still feel the same way they did back them. But now, if I pull up and play a song I haven’t played in forever – Oh my God, wow! My hands do this now.

Rob Hiemstra, Toronto, Canada

“You’re dealing with one of the best guitar teachers in the world, maybe the best and you can’t get that just anywhere in the world.”

I wanted to really focus much more on getting the technique down, with the integration Tom has of bringing in the other aspects such as theory, improvisation or songwriting so it all integrates and ties together. You get a comprehensive package so that you not only learn the technique, you’re really applying it in many different ways... in ways that are going to be much more useful, rather than your average internet lesson where the guy just explains something or shows you how to do it. Tom tells you how to do something and how to apply and use it in many different ways.

Tom is so goal focused, and I hadn’t even thought of that, it changed the way I thought of things. Tom makes you come up with musical goals and works towards fulfilling those goals. You have something to focus on, the lessons are based on meeting those goals. You’re getting better, you can see how you’re getting better and then you build new goals after that. You see the growth and development as opposed to just getting a little better at a certain technique. You’re actually developing.

Mike Larson, Milwaukee, USA

“Before the online guitar lessons I had a local guitar teacher. Like a jazz guitar teacher. I had him for about 4 years. The thing is I don’t really play jazz, so after a while it was kind of useless, so I started looking for rock guitar / metal guitar teachers, but I couldn’t find one in my area. That’s when I found Tom.”

The difference between Tom and a normal guitar teacher... The teacher I was with for 4 years, he asked me what I wanted to learn, the songs and licks and stuff. It wasn’t really logical or structured in any way. Going from one lesson learning something, then the next lesson learning something, next lesson... with no structure in between it. That’s something Tom really has. He has really good structure.

Johan Tillgren, Sweden

“Being involved in coaching and sports as an athlete. I find Tom to be one of these guys who he delivers a lot of confidence in the way he knows... I have confidence in him, that if I follow what he says to do, I’ll be successful.”

What I think is remarkable about Tom is he is able to adjust to people of various talents, capabilities, knowledge and skills. He’s affable, he’s funny, he’s good. He’s not standoffish, he’s not intimidating. I was actually kinda nervous before coming here... I’m 62 years old, you know I don’t have anything nervous about at this point in my life. This was a big deal, a big commitment. There’s tremendous confidence, and I’m not trying to be the next Steve Vai at this point in my life, that’s not my goal at all. But where I want to go with my playing... a certain freedom, a certain knowledge... I really do feel the stuff Tom is giving me is going to make a difference in my life, and that’s important.

John Alper, Bridgewater, USA

“I basically made a decision, you know I’ve been playing on and off for most of my life, I made a decision to get serious about this again or just sell the equipment and be done with it you know... either do it or don’t.”

I had searched around, you know found a lot of the free sites you know that are on the internet. Learned some cool stuff. Happened to stumbled upon Tom, I don’t remember exactly how, but anyway… I was a bit skeptical at first, you know, but decided to give it a chance and haven’t looked back since.

Greg Frus, Olympia, Washington, USA

“I was looking for help, I played a lot in the 80’s, and I didn’t touch guitar for 15 years maybe. And I decided to get back into it. And I was an OK player. But I decided I wanted to take it to a new level, I was looking for hobby I could spend time on.”

After playing around for a few months, I decided I needed a teacher. I had taken music theory classes in college. I understood a lot of the basics of music. I felt like I needed a jump start... something to get me going and keep me practicing every day. So, I’d been to the websites and YouTube, on my own, sort of seeking teachers and I came across Tom Hess, saw his videos, and so I gave that a shot.

The online guitar lessons are very high quality lessons, there’s plenty there to keep you going from lessons to lesson, it forces you to practice a lot to keep up with the lessons.

My guitar playing improved immensely! I knew some of the theory, I knew I was a fairly good player, but a lot of this just tied it all together. The typical teacher was just some guy in a band, who was sitting in a music store room, who kind of showed you whatever you asked or what he felt like… there were various techniques used. This is much more professional. You have more of a specific plan the second you walk in, what your goals are, what direction you want to go, you’re kind of mapped throughout your progress and pushed in the right direction.

Daniel Kunde, South Beach, Oregon, USA

"I had actually I tried many things before I tried Tom Hess. I’ve taken guitar lessons from many different guitar teachers… some of which were decent, but I surpassed all of them in the end."

And I tried learning from books and from different online places. But in the end, I decided to take correspondence lessons with Tom Hess, because unlike anything else online, or unlike a book, he actually creates a unique lesson plan to address my specific problems.

My guitar playing has improved since taking correspondence lessons with Tom Hess in several areas, but, the main areas that they’ve improved in are being able to improvise over a backing track and visualizing the fretboard, and I’ve also gotten faster at playing since starting lessons with Tom Hess.

Chris Hirsch, Ruston, Louisiana, USA

“Honestly, a lot of the guitar teachers that I took lessons with, they were great at the time, but eventually they just kind of ran out of stuff to show me and teach me or whatever.”

One thing Tom Hess does that a lot of other teachers don’t do is he guides lessons in such a way that they fulfill your personal goals as a musician. Since I start taking lessons with Tom, my playing has gotten a lot cleaner, and he's given me a lot of strategies for building speed on the riffs that I've been having trouble with, and exercises to work out all kinds of different issues that I have in my playing.

Tom’s goal oriented approach really helps to focus your practice into things that you know, honestly things you really want to do. It forces you to really stop and look at, you know, “Hey, I want to get into this style or I want to do this with my musical career, I want to get into this or I want to get into that.” You know just basically whatever directions you choose to go, he gives you the lessons that’ll give you the straight path to that. There’s entirely no BS with other stuff. There’s no useless stuff. It’s all stuff that’s going to help you.

Daniel Cruzan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

The main reason I like learning from Tom is: he has a lot of knowledge and he sees your problems really fast, and he finds solutions lightning fast, and he communicates in a way that’s clear and to the point.

Ryan Duke, Seattle, Washington, USA

"Tom Hess’s attitude is really contagious in a good way obviously. Like when I first started taking lessons, that year turned out to be the most productive year I’ve ever had in my life."

I remember there was one lesson I got from Tom Hess. I can’t remember which one it was but he was mentioned how when he was younger he saw Yngwie Malmsteen with some friends and they were all going, oh man I’ll never be able to play like him, and he was thinking the complete opposite, going "what are you talking about, I want to play like that. I’m inspired." And you know, the level of playing that I’ve seen in the guys here is definitely helping to inspire me to get better, but also the way how supporting they are and how motivating they are is helping me to make better life choices... that’s a really good thing.

Ryan Mueller, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

“I was always curious about trying to find a way to get past where I was at but I kept running into brick walls. I realized that Tom's teaching was probably what I needed to break through that wall.”

The main reason why Tom's lessons were working for me was because he was making me do things that I didn't do before on my guitar so he was breaking me out of the rut that I was in.

The lessons are absolutely value for money and I have a lot of fun on the guitar, I spend a lot of time whenever I can.

John Magee, San Francisco, California, USA

"As a mentor and teacher, Tom has had a profound influence on my development as a musician and more importantly, my level of fulfillment as a person who is now living their passion.”

Tom has an exceptional level of knowledge and understanding in music, music business and how to effectively teach music, and he delivers this with a holistic, highly-detailed and goal-oriented approach. Tom's teaching style is bold and powerful, and unlike many teachers, he actually has the credential's to back up what he preaches, having already achieved international success as a touring and recording artist and world-class guitarist.

Chris Ball, singer/guitarist/songwriterMelbourne, Australia

"I was decent guitar player with lots of ideas. From the moment I had my first lesson with Tom, those ideas began to take shape. They began to transform into solid results that I could measure and in which I could take pride. More than that, I've been exposed to concepts and disciplines--primarily things that I formerly didn't even know existed. These also have become and are becoming the resultant products of this new knowledge. It's given me new vision for myself as a player, and continues to give me new ideas; while still keeping and expanding all my former ideas.”

And, I've learned a non-linear approach to learning that has proven itself to me over and over again. (Eg. I've been struggling with sweep picking for months, and two days ago it simply made sense! I stopped all the excess motion in my picking hand and simply moved my forearm to brush the pick across the strings.)

I'll stop here, though I could write you a 20 page book, each page describing an insight I've gleaned from your words, your playing, your music, your lesson material, those of your associates like George Bellas, and those of my fellow forum members; and it would still not do justice to the blessings I've received.

So for, now all I can really say is thank for
what you've taught me, for what you're teaching me, and--as I wait eagerly--for what you will teach me in the future.

Karl Maier
New York City, New York, USA

“I don’t know that there is a better trainer or teacher than Tom in the world. I mean, he’s number one for a reason. He gives you so much more value than what you pay for, it’s unbelievable, that’s for sure.”

Dan Smith, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

“At the time when I decided to sign up for online guitar lessons with Tom, I didn’t really have specific goals in mind, so when I was filling out his page, when I signed up for lessons, he asked a lot of questions about where are you at now, and what do you want to become, what do you want to achieve…”

I’m not 100% as goal oriented as Tom is, but it’s a good example of how you should do it in your life.

One of the differences between Tom Hess and other guitar teachers is that the lessons are huge and you never lose anything. You always have your guitar lesson in your account and you can download it. The volume of the things described in the lesson is not like “to do this until the next lesson”... it’s some examples with a lot more general stuff you can implement and use for years... to master. When you try to get some ideas from friends... some tricks... it’s almost always not so wide spread, you get only one specific thing to learn and you may not even be able to implement it into your own guitar playing. In Tom’s lessons, he shows you the way to implement any technique and integrate all the things together..

If you receive your lesson and have a hard time grasping things from it, it’s almost 100% you’ll find a topic on the same thing on the forum where there are already a lot of things explained by a lot more experienced guys. There are a lot of discussions going on and you can immediately get your answers. I have my answers immediately all the time. But I don’t really have that much questions. The single most important thing for me that I got from the forums is a full understanding of how modes and scales work. There are a lot of things about music theory in the forums.

Click on these pictures to check out cool videos of my students playing in the final round of my recent music playing contests.

Additional Student Feedback

When I showed up for my first lesson with Tom, I never really thought an average person could accomplish their dreams of writing and playing music for a living. It would be an understatement to say that my life has been changed. Not only has Tom instilled in my playing a high level of technique but more importantly an understanding that music involves so much more than insane chops. The things I now consider the intangibles: vibrato, phrasing, aural skills and everything that has to do with composition, things I had never thought about before I met Tom, are what really make music emotional and a form of self expression. Tom has open my mind, eyes, and ears to help me explore concepts such as counterpoint, voice leading, and odd meters which now allow me to use technique as a tool to create music I only could have dreamed about making. Most importantly he has shown me that hard work, not natural talent, will always guarantee the accomplishment of my dreams and goals. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to learn from one of the true masters the guitar has ever had. Thanks.

It is hard to compare Tom and his teaching to any other guitar teacher out there. His knowledge and technique are unbelievable. I have been taking private lesson with him for a little over a year and it is ridiculous to see how much better of a musician I have become. My technique and speed have drastically improved and my knowledge of music theory and other related things have grown to levels that I would never have been able to reach without his help. I am making great steps in reaching my goals, both as a musician and in my music career goals. Tom's teaching methods are so incredible and helpful. His great playing inspires me to work harder at all the musical areas I am studying.

Tom, you are the one and only reason that I am the musician that I am today. My lessons with you throughout the years were such a huge part of my life and no other teacher could ever have come close to your expertise. My career as a professional musician/teacher is due to all of your help and guidance from the years that I have known you. I appreciate all of the time you have spent with me advancing my career long after our private lessons ended. I cannot thank you enough.

Tom Hess is the reason I pursued a music career. I took lessons from him all throughout high school, and he has become a very important mentor for me. He not only improved my playing immensely, but he helped me to realize that music is what I want to make my living with. I pursued a degree from Berklee College of Music because of him. After graduation, he offered me the incredible opportunity to play bass in the HESS band. I have learned a great deal from him even years afterwards.

Beginning my studies with Tom was without a doubt one of the greatest and most wise decisions I have ever made for my guitar playing. When I began my lessons my knowledge of music theory was lacking and I had no idea how to improvise solos or understood what it meant to compose truly expressive music. After studying with Tom (mostly via correspondence), I am currently enrolled in advanced music theory classes at a renown musical university. I also have greater skills to compose music than ever before. My playing ability is also greater than ever, and continues to grow with correct practice. But most importantly, I am very confident now that I will eventually reach all of my musical goals (which include becoming a virtuoso guitarist and music composer) Tom's sincere desire to help his students reach their goals, is one of the main things which makes him the great teacher he is. I feel very fortunate to have a mentor like Tom, and I look forward to learning from him in the years to come.

I started taking lessons from Tom Hess around 1996. I was self taught up until then. It was under Tom¹s tutelage that I learned what it meant to be a true guitarist/musician. Because of Tom I learned how to exceed my own expectations. I owe my musical ability first to God and then to Tom Hess.

I have studied with Tom Hess for 2 years . He has become a great asset in my musical Career . From listening to my tunes, offering unbiased critique, teaching me about composition and how to express my self thru the guitar and music . I would recommended Tom to anyone seriously wanting to become a great player.

Correspondence lessons with Tom have been the best thing I've done since I last took guitar lessons many years ago. I had struggled on my own to find direction, but Tom's lessons have really focused me and I feel like I am definitely on the right track to becoming a great guitarist. One of the best parts about the lessons is that they don't just cover guitar technique; in addition, they delve into songwriting and composition, many aspects of music theory, and ear training, just to name a few. Tom's lessons aren't just about becoming a better guitar player, they're about becoming a better musician.

Tom's intuition is uncanny. He knows what you need to do to improve. I had signed up for these lessons not knowing what to expect and from the very first lesson that I received and to this day, Tom knows my weaknesses and addresses those. I know that I have massively improved since.

Tom's lessons helped me to make big advances in my playing.Tom has some great information and methods that have helped my playing significantly.The skills I've developed have made it easier for me to make music and work with other musicians.Thanks!

Tom Hess is truly a master at what he does! The lessons I have received are excellent in content. Musically I am seeing a progression in Techniques that had taken months and months on my own with very little forward progress. Now I am moving forward and becoming more and more confident in my playing and attitude. A HUGE IMPACT! I can't leave out the articles. Great stuff and very inspirational! Thanks Krzysztof, Dan and Alexander and THANK YOU for the lessons Tom! If you are serious about music, invest in yourself and study with Tom Hess.

I was introduced to Mr. Hess through one of my friends who studied with him through correspondence lessons ( and still does ). I thought I would give it a try because I am always open to learn as much as possible. I was not expected to be blown away with how down to earth Mr. Hess is though. A lot of these students will talk of how their guitar playing and composing has increased, and of course mine has increased dramatically; I am at a point I thought never possible a year ago. However, every time I have met with Mr. Hess in person ( 3 times ) it has not only changed me as a musician, but as a person. I used to be a pessimistic closed minded individual with little knowledge on music and how to express my true self. However, Mr. Hess taught me the ropes, forever changing my outlook on music and life. Without Mr. Hess's guidance I would NOT be here at argueably the best music school in the country, IU. I consider Mr. Hess not only a great instructor, but also my friend. Listen to this guy and your life will change!!! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to learn from you bro.

I have been studying with Tom for just over a year now. That year I have had significant changes in my life. First off, I was fresh out of highschool. I was inspired by recordings of Tom, and by another one of his students guitar playing capabilities. I have always been into writing music, and as I started with Tom, our focus pretty much became just that. "Just that" included introducing me to theory, more in depth composition, priceless advice on how to handle the business end things, and over all a broader range of music appreciation. I look to Tom as the Teachers Holy Trinity; the teacher, the mentor, and the friend. Tom has helped me put together many of the pieces in my jigsaw puzzle of a music career, and still continues to today. Thanks Tom!

Just wanted to drop you a line and tell you how much I enjoyed the pedagogy lesson. It got here yesterday and I have reread it a couple of times. I have several "How To Teach Guitar" e-books, all of which contained some good ideas, and you still managed to touch on some things that these other books didn't cover. I'm really looking forward to Part 2 in April. I can see myself studying with you for a long time to come! You are The Man! I have no doubt that with your guidance, I can reach my teaching goals. I also want to write an instructional book someday. Something that teaches simple modal application for people who have been playing strictly pentatonic scales.

I have spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours scouring the web for materials to help me to improve my teaching. Even with the huge collection of books that I have, your very first guitar pedagogy lesson contained ideas that I hadn't thought of and weren't covered anywhere else. I have no doubt that with your guidance I can elevate my teaching to the next level and reach my goal of quitting my day job and becoming a full time guitar teacher. My biggest regret is that I didn't start correspondence lessons with you sooner.

Although I have only been on your correspondance program for a month (2 lessons) the progress I have made in that time is more than was made in the last year of trying to teach myself. I am a far better guitarist and it feels great! I look forward to seeing how far your lessons, and my sustained practice sessions, can take me.

Well Tom, I have to say I'm really impressed so far with my correspondence course. The last few months studying your music lessons have had an enormous effect on my attitude towards music and the guitar (I'm sure you get comments like this a lot, but it's true!). YOU've inspired me to pursue a career in the music business as a professional musician.

Tom, I stumbled upon one of your articles while surfing on the net, and I was hit by the fact that not only there were no licks inside, but you were covering a vital topic: perseverance. I had perseverance, but didn't know what to practice! Then I discovered that you gave correspondence lessons. I was dubious at first (you know, correspondence lessons... it is really possible to learn?), but your kind answers before I enrolled persuaded me. After 3 months I see that this was probably the single best decision in my guitar playing. What still strike me is how much you were able to understand of me by the few things I told you... at the end of the first month I was thinking that I needed some exercise specific for the right hand, but you were faster than me and included it in the following lesson BEFORE I told you! Ditto for the exercise on hands syncronization. Also, you made me realize how important is ear training in becoming a musician and not only a "guitar player". In only 3 months my skills on the guitar have improved enormously, my playing is cleaner and on time, I feel more confident. At the beginning I wasn't sure that I could eventually reach my goals... but after seeing the improvements I am not doubting any more! Thanks, Tom, and keep doing the good work!!

Tom Hess’ correspondence lessons are amazing. I really feel a lot of support from the lessons and the forum. Tom really wants you to exceed, and as a world class virtuoso he knows exactly what the next step for is you. He keeps on pushing you to greater levels, lesson after lesson. Before I started lessons with Tom I was an intermediate player, now I can really feel how I will totally dominate as a guitar player and an upcoming force in the music industry. Thanks a lot, Tom!

To me, one of the hardest parts about learning to play the guitar is that I'd much rather just play the guitar instead of sitting around and practicing. Fortunately Tom's lessons not only include the physical techniques required to play the guitar well, but he also understands the mental road blocks that we all put up for ourselves when trying to learn. In his lessons he includes articles and examples from his own personal experience as a student and as a professional, to help us get past these hurdles. Another invaluable resource that Tom offers is his Students Forum on the website. It is one of the most friendly and helpful forums, of any type, that I've run across. Unlike random searching on the web, you can find answer to questions that are lesson specific and give you a greater understanding of the material you're trying to learn. Overall I would highly recommend Tom as a guitar teacher.

Reading Tom's article on the myths of becoming a professional musician solidified my decision to pursue my passion for music as a career. I was a one-year-old self-taught guitarist back then, and I knew I needed a better way to reach my playing goals. Since Tom offered affordable correspondence lessons, I seriously considered studying with him, and signed up for the program. After about a month of reading through https://tomhess.net, I finally COMPLETELY surrendered all what I thought playing and practicing guitar is about to Tom, and made my first payment to him.

It has now been 6 months since I began studying with Tom Hess, and as I look back, I smile in disbelief at how primitive my past approaches to guitar playing and practice really were ... and that I would have still been practicing with the self-defeating habits that I developed within the first year of teaching myself guitar. Though I'll always have room to improve, I CANNOT BELIEVE how the quality of my practicing has risen in half a year!

Aside from the lessons that I regularly get from him, Tom provides so much more value to me and all of his students. The private forum alone is worth the money with the quality of its members. Tom's passion and dedication to his students (just from my experience with him) is INCREDIBLE. Tom isn't just a guitar teacher to me ... he is my greatest mentor. I will probably never stop studying with him ... the guy is always 77 steps ahead of me! The money for the lessons is nothing compared to what I'm getting in return. The best way I'll ever pay the man back is by blasting past and beyond all of my major music goals in life, and letting him know about it.

In 6 months Tom's lessons have exceeded my expectations. I am 20-+ year student of guitar and have been playing in weekend cover bands for over 10 years. I'm always on the look out for new learning material. I have taken lessons from 4 or 5 excellent teachers locally, face to face over the past 10-15 years. I've been fortunate to these teachers were very helpful with where I was at a point in time with my playing. I am also a big collector of instructional material, printed, audio, video, tab etc. I always have a small stack of learning material to supplement my band song list for my regular practice sessions.

Yes, I could have stayed comfortable in my playing, continued to learn at a certain pace and continued to play in my weekend cover band successfully a few times a month but 6 months ago I felt the time was right to try the correspondence format Tom advertised on his web site. Skeptical of mail order correspondent lessons, but looking for specific instruction on how to practice more effectively, and close in some gaps on fundamental skills, the format seemed low risk

Yes we've touched on some basic fundamentals that I knew (or thought I knew) but we've gone way beyond that as well. I am practicing with renewed enthusiasm, throwing new spark into my cover band songs, learning to balance learning new things, having fun playing and performing. The material I am receiving will always be there for me to refer back to. Each lesson seems to contain a variety of material well conceived to where I am in my playing and what I am hoping to accomplish.

The topics and technical areas of focus Tom provides are not for just now but for the future, such areas like aural skills, composition, songwriting, learning songs, advanced chords, scales etc. are things I had never thought to focus on. While I pride myself on improvising in a blues setting, both Tom's basic blues improve lessons and his Improvisation CD classes have been a huge benefit and I look forward to receiving each new installment

Tom uses his applicant questionnaire very effectively and has an uncanny ability of programming your subsequent lessons individually and personally for you. Finally, it's not just about the lessons from Tom. The community of other students he has built via the web site forum is an invaluable resource. Everyone is knowledgeable in their own right and many are teachers themselves.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the lessons from Tom and look forward to continuing to learn and grow my musical abilities.

Some time ago when I started to play guitar I didn't have a teacher, didn't have true knowledge, didn't have goals, didn't have direction where to move. I just collected information from many sources and soaked it up. Once I was surfing the Internet, grabbing musical info, and accidentally found Tom's article. At the same evening I emailed him and asked to teach me. I've been taking correspondence lessons for about one and a half year and during this time Tom totally changed my technique, my style of playing and my vision of music. Now I have serious guitar goals, I have the way to achieve them, I have really cool teacher and friend and I am happy with it. It is wonderful how just one email can change your life!

In April of 2004 my daughter and I wanted to experience an activity or hobby that would bring us closer together. Not only has taking lessons with Tom brought us closer together, but we are sharing and experiencing the joy of playing guitar far beyond my greatest hope! Taking lessons from a Pro's Pro like Tom gives you the best practices and techniques for beginners when it can be so easy to quit. Tom has taught a lot of students over the years and knows how to reach into people and tap their awaiting expression and skill like he truly has with us. Although Tom's own skills are far beyond even most professional guitarists, he shows remarkable patience and reinforcement of your progress as you go. If you have kids that want to learn guitar or if you are an adult that has always felt you could be the next "Angus" or Kirk Hamett...or whoever.... Tom is the teacher you want. He provides more than just guitar lessons, he provides a real musical education

Tom Hess is the man! He has taught me everything I've ever wanted to know about guitar, songwriting, and music in general over the last six years. He is an extremely intelligent person with a massive amount of knowledge in this field. I recommend Tom to anyone who wants to learn to play guitar and wants to improve his guitar playing skills.

I have just finished up a six hour practice/study session with the materials you furnished, in addition to an hour or two per night since I got them a few days ago. Having taken private lessons from two other instructors and studied on my own for a number of years, in addition to performing live for about five years now, I think I can say with some authority that this is the course I have been looking for! While my previous instructors each had something to offer, what they did not provide is training in the underlying science and art behind music that will give me what I want - free command of the fretboard. I think your course is finally going to unlock that door for me.

The aural skills training is the best thing I have come across since I started messing around with the guitar as a child. This should be lesson one, day one of any music training, and yet I have not seen it anywhere else in my previous lessons or any of the books I have used. One thing I want to accomplish is to be able to listen to songs and figure them out quickly, rather than have to struggle through the endless tedium of memorizing tab transcriptions or playing a CD a hundred times trying to figure out all the parts. I think this aural skills training is going to greatly enhance my ability to pick apart songs and get them on the fretboard fast. This alone is worth the price of the first lesson set. As an added bonus, due to concentrated listening to my guitar with a clean tone I found that my intonation is off and one of my patch cords is causing noise. I also found that I get sharp as I get farther from the root, and I was able to spot this and correct it in just a couple of days with the exercises you provided. This could be a course by itself.

The Improv CD has already opened my eyes to some critical deficiencies in my current skill set. As an experienced live performer with a regular repertoire of mostly improv leads, I thought I had at least a pretty good handle on the basics. I can see I have been missing a lot and anticipate significant returns on the time and money in just a few months with this training.

I have started the recordings for the remainder of the lessons. I can't believe how much material you have provided in just one set of lessons. This is enough to keep me busy for several months with my old practice routine. Obviously I will be putting in some more time than before, but it will be well worth the sacrifice I'm sure. I am also thankful that you included some materials on arpeggios, as this is an area I have not really pursued but have been wanting to for a long time. There is so much here I'm almost afraid it may be too much for me to handle, but I'm going to give it a hard try.

It is obvious you have put a lot of thought and care into this course and I appreciate it. I know enough about music to know a real guitar course when I see one, and so far this is the best I have seen short of taking a college program. I wish I had found something like this ten or fifteen years ago.

BTW, the bonus Guitars at an Exhibition CD is unbelievable, I have it cranked up right now and expect the police to be here any minute! If I can ever play like some of these students of yours it will be more than worth the money for the course.

I'm looking forward to the next package in a few weeks and hope to be ready for it. Thanks again, for the course and for answering my e-mail questions.

Tom Hess is a great teacher, it's worth to take lessons with him! I've learned a lot from his teachings and methods. It has definitely corrected my perspectives on practicing and other things. Thanks a lot, teacher!

Before I started studying with Tom Hess I was completely self taught. I had played along with songs and learned things everywhere I could for about 5 years. I got to a point where I thought I was pretty good, I could play well enough to impress any of my friends and everybody in my circle of friends thought of me as the guitar player guy. Over a period of time though, the more I got serious about playing guitar (and I was already pretty serious, so I thought!) the more I started to realize something in the back of my mind. I started to realize that I had reached a point in my playing where I was not getting better. After that I realized that I did not know HOW to get better and take my playing to the next level. This is the thing. Many people when coming to the same realization that I did would just assume they did not have what it takes, and move on to something easier. This is no way to get any worthy results out of any aspect of your life. So with this fact, I figured I should FIND OUT how to get better. I knew about Tom Hess from reading many of his excellent articles, and knew exactly who I needed to turn to. Now that I have been studying with him, I have already begun making amazing progress faster than I realized was possible. And it would not be possible if I did not have a very experienced teacher like Tom to make lesson plans for me and put me on the quickest path to helping me put my goals into reality. Its just like Tom said to me in the very first email I ever sent him, STOP TALKING AND START DOING, BROTHER.

I first heard of Tom Hess when I was on a guitar training website and stumbled upon an article he had written about Perseverance. As it turns out it was exactly what I needed to hear. I had tried many times to improve my guitar playing on my own but lacked the focus and perseverance Tom mentioned because I had no plan, I had no one to help direct me. Of course I just thought I did not have what it took to become a good guitar player so was almost ready to quit. Although reluctant at first with the idea of correspondence lessons, I decided I had nothing to lose so I signed up. It was the right decision! The past several months I have seen an improvement in many areas of my playing thanks to Tom's lessons. As a matter of fact I have improved more in a few months with his help than I have over the past several years on my own. The area I have seen the most improvement in however is improvisation. If someone had told me that I would be able to improvise a solo after only a few lessons I would have laughed at them in disbelief - I could not believe it was possible for me. Well, not only was it possible, it has happened!! Thanks Tom. I look forward to attaining several other goals and milestones with your help.

We've worked together for the last 6 months now and I have to say that I'm very happy with the instruction you've provided. No way would I have progressed as quickly as I have had I tackled it all on my own.

You provide the right materials for me to practice and the materials on how to practice to achieve my goals. In addition, you're always only an email away. Though you undoubtedly get hundreds of emails a day, you always reply in a timely manner (within 2 days). This is certainly a much better situation than it was when I was taking more traditional lessons as a kid where I could only correspond with the teacher once a week during our lesson.

Your teaching methods, along with my own organizational abilities and dedication to practice, is helping me to become a better guitar player now than I ever was when I was younger (and I was really good then). I give you credit for the lessons.... I'll take credit for the hard work. ;-)

After being away from the guitar and music for so many years to pursue the "adult" goals in life, you've helped me to rediscover what a joy it is to play the guitar again. It fills a big void in the soul that corporate/family life just doesn't provide. Thanks!

I have always loved playing the guitar but wanted to play more than just published sheet music. Tom has helped me to understand and apply music theory to my playing, helping me to think of where the music can go instead of waiting to be shown what to do. Tom also helped me to improve my playing technique by showing me better ways to play certain phrases. I still have a long way to go, but with his help I am enjoying playing music and not just notes.

I'm a husband and father of 2 & I've been playing guitar for 28 years. Even though I am a pretty good player and believe I have a good sense of melody and feel, I am not where I want to be as a player or musician. Being self taught learning proper technique and other skills was hit and miss. Learning these skills from a good teacher is critical to becoming an excellent guitarist and especially to do so in a much shorter amount of time. I had grown tired of remaining on a plateau with my playing and in March, 2004 I decided to start taking lessons.

I found a local teacher with incredible credentials. University degree's, classically trained, Master Class student, session guitarist with legendary musicians, articles written about his virtuosity and the playing ability to back it all up.

He was one bad dude!

I took a total of 10 lesson's with this instructor and stopped when my father became very ill. During this time I reflected on all the time I had spent taking these lessons, driving to the lesson's and back home, practicing the lesson material and the hundreds of dollars I spent taking them. I was a bit disappointed with what I got out compared to what I put in.

I tried on my own to create a course of study and purchased a few "Lesson's" from a web based guitar instruction site that focused on a particular subject such as "Modes"& "Improvising" and downloaded other material on technique & theory. These ended up collecting dust for the most part because there was no structure to my study. No focus.

Frustration was really setting in.

I really wanted to reach my potential but I had no idea how to get there. Especially with my busy schedule. I new there was a good chance that I could be wasting a lot of valuable time by not learning and practicing things I really should be for my personal skill level to achieve my goals. I was driving blind.

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto your web site while searching the internet to answers some questions I had regarding theory and technique. I took a close look at what your teaching philosophy is, what some of your other students had to say about you, what your credentials are and I listened to how well you actually play. I was reluctant to trust another amazing guitarist with my hard earned dollars and time. Not to mention taking lessons from a few hundred miles away through correspondence!

I listened to how well your students on your web site played, how well you played, asked you questions over and over again and finally decided to go for it.

When I received my first lesson I was surprised how organized it was and how much material was actually there. I read it 3 times and prepared my practice environment and materials as instructed in the lesson and began practicing. I wanted to be certain I was practicing the material correctly so I sent you several e-mails asking you to verify that I was correct with certain techniques and fingers, etc. and I was very impressed with how quickly you responded and with such detail and patience. You took the time to answer my questions even though the answers were not only in the material but also in a very organized "FAQ" area on your web site!

It's been almost 3 weeks now since I received lesson #1 and I can honestly say that I have learned more in this single lesson than I did in the 10 private, one on one lessons with my previous teacher! He was an incredible player but his teaching skills were nowhere near yours!

I am very, very impressed! Finally a claim that means what it says!

Since I completed your evaluation, you have a total understanding of where I am currently at regarding my entire skill set and my goals and you have provided me with the roadmap to get there. No more driving blind!!

I know this may sound like an infomercial but I just wanted you to know how impressed I am and how happy I am with your lessons. Please feel free to share this with anyone. I can't recommend you enough!

Thank you for everything you have done for me during my time in your country. I return to my home in 4 days. I am very happy I know you and I came to study music from you. The experiences of our lessons has changed my life forever in the very great way! When I began your lessons, I thought it will be good and I wanted to achieve some simple things. You gave me the gift to believe about that I thought was impossible. I thank you again for your amazing teaching. You are much more than the great teacher. You are the master and my mentor. In my country, teachers teach only, but they do not care so much about my musical happiness as you. Forever I do not forget about you. I am happy to begin correspondence lesson with you when I am home and ready to begin again!

John came home today after his lesson and was gleaming with excitement. He told us about your conversation with him regarding his desire to pursue a career in music. John has never been this motivated about anything in his life! We owe a lot to you for doing so much for our son. Beyond all of things you have taught him, he really looks up to you. We are happy that he has chosen a very positive role model versus so many bad ones he could have chosen. My wife and I are grateful for you showing John his true potential, we always knew he had it in him, but he needed to know it for himself. He never really paid any attention to us when we encouraged him (he was only glad we kept paying for all the lessons!), but he listens to all that you say about these things.

Nice job you did on the rock tracks CD, I've wanted something like this for a long time! I love the lessons we are doing with the CD too, what a huge learning aid they are! I can't wait to record myself improvising and send it to you again.

.... The second lesson was awesome!! Thank you. I have gained a lot since I started taking lessons from you. My accuracy, speed, and all around playing has shot through the roof. As soon as I get a recorder, I will send you a copy of me playing. Take care!

....I still take lessons from Hess. I think I started back in 2002. I have never actually met him yet, but I will when he will play in Quebec City this June. He was cool enough to arrange backstage passes for me and my girlfriend. As a teacher, he's massive! Really knows his shit and really really knows how to explain it all to me! I'm a way better player now because of him. The Opus 2 record is out of this world. totally massive!....

Hiya Tom, Your lessons are outstanding. Karen loves to practice her guitar now and she is thrilled about her improved song writing skills. She called me from Florida and told me to schedule more lessons with you for when she returns from her gigs down south.

Francesco told me all about you remember? He is also a great player! The newest set of lesson you made for me are very challenging but I think they are exactly what I needed to work on at this time. So I feel my skill is really growing now! it is very exciting because now i can play the way I always only wished about 6 months ago! It is very cool! Thank you Hess!!!

I've been a student, follower and fan of Tom Hess for more than 8 years now. When I met Tom, I was just a kid in high school with a dream to be real professional musician. I now teach and play guitar professionally. Tom has helped me in so many ways, it would take forever to say it all. I learned a lot more from Tom than good guitar playing. I learned how to become a pro. He not only taught me what to do and how to do it, he went way out of his way (many times) to help me get better gigs and other musical opportunities. He didn't have to do any of that, he wasn't getting paid to do it, he just did it! Even though I don't live near him anymore I am his student even now via distance learning correspondence lessons.

...I got so sick of great guitar players that can't teach! Many of them don't really know what they are doing and others may know it themselves, but can't find a way to make me understand it! It was so frustrating. Your logical structure and easy to understand approach is invaluable. But the coolest part is, if i don't understand something, all I have to do is ask and you explain it in a new way and then i get it! You don't know how long I've been searching for this.

I did all what you taught about recruiting more students and it worked! I now have 45 students a week! Its the greatest feeling in the world (OKAY, maybe its only the second greatest) to be able to quit my old job and finally, after all these years, be the professional musician and teacher that I am now! I mean, whoa man, life is awesome! If it wasn't for you dude, I would probably still be working at that dead end loser job back in Iowa making like $8 and hour taking lessons from some dude that aint all that great anyway. Now I make more than 4 times that much cash with my freaken guitar teaching cool students!! Life is good bro, life is good!!! U DA MAN Tom.

...of course Tom is a great teacher, that much is obvious. It's all that happens behind the scenes, which some people may not be aware of, that is of the most value. He helped me get my first guitar teaching job and I know he has done this for some of his other students too. He even gave me (and another student of his) the excellent opportunity to go on tour with him in Europe last summer!

I met Hess during a really bad time in my life. After playing guitar seriously for 7 years, I was ready to give up on music altogether. That was when I first heard about Hess. His articles "Why aren't you a better guitarist", "Musical frustration" and others opened my eyes again. I became one of his correspondence students in 2003. I've turned my life around (both music life and personal life) and I'm making a good living in music now with his guidance I have faithfully followed. I feel I owe him a lot.

As a guitarist I be positioned on basis the unimaginable tower be called Guitar experience. When I practice without assistance, I understand,what I never reach a level of neoclassical guitarists. At that time, Fortune meets me with virtuoso guitar player and teacher Tom Hess. Almost 1 year as I working with this outstanding teacher and musician and simply very good person. Of course, I rookie as yet, but I think what my progress it is obvious. Work with Tom Hess to be of benefit - now I begin to understand using musical theory on practice. Very important what I improve thanks to his lessons my aural and improvising skills. Also I continue to advance general technique of playing. I just to thank one's lucky stars for working Tom Hess with me.THANKS.

Fortune smiled on me, to you brought me. I grow each day from seed to tree, now I am with happiness because my music studies are broad. Only with translation of English do I have bigger challenges. Contents of your lessons are of my favorites I have seen for my life. Large Gratitude to you Mr. Hess!

Tom Hess has the ability to help you cut right through the fat and get to the heart of what you want accomplished. His knowledge reaches far into the many fields of, and related to, music. If there is something you want to learn, he already knows everything about it, and is more than happy to share all of it with you. With his help, I've been able to figure out why, and how, I want music in my life. His passion for the art is no less than an inspiration to be around, and his approaches to teaching are all his own, and all effective.

I didn't study with Tom for very long, but it didn't take much time for his teachings to effect my playing drastically. I had been learning guitar from a friend who I used to work with, who had played for some time. He helped my playing but then decided that he himself needed to accelerate his abilities. He referred me to Tom Hess, which is something I'm still grateful for. When I started with Tom I was still in the beginning stages and uncomfortable with the instrument. After studying his teachings on things like pedal point, picking hand discipline, and the use of a metronome my abilities sharpened intensely in a very short period. They developed so much that I was actually able to produce a song, which Tom edited and recorded for me. Tom Hess is an incredible musician and also a great guy. We spent many sessions talking about music and art, which is something I am very passionate about because its a dream of mine to be a professional tattoo artist. Tom didn't just teach me great things about music though. He shared with me books and motivational tapes that explain how to conduct yourself so that there is no way you can fail at anything in your life that you want to pursue. He shared with me ideas and philosophies that changed my life. When I was with Tom I had an unfortunate encounter with a loss in my family. Also, I am recently taking on another family members fight against cancer. Life hasn't dealt me the greatest hands lately but because of Tom I have the tools and techniques to overcome anything that life dishes out. He didn't just introduce music to me, he introduced to me a whole new way of living, for which I am grateful.

Out of all the programs and teachers that I have had, none have been as effective as Tom Hess' program! I at first was suspicious about correspondence lessons, but they with Tom's help, my guitar skills have propelled further than I could have every imagined. Tom actually works with you instead sending you an impersonal package of scales and charts. He's always willing to answer my questions and help me advance to the next level. This guy is the real deal!

I have been taking your correspondence lessons going on two months and just got my first lesson on improvising. I am most impressed with the structure the lessons are in and how much I am enjoying them. I practice for at least an hour every night and I have not gotten bored with any of the lessons. I emphasize this because when I get bored, I loose interest, and that has been my problem throughout the years playing.

I am very much looking forward to continue with the correspondence and improvising lessons and for you to help me reach both my short term and long term goals. Thanks Tom!!

First let me say I am very pleased with your lessons. The tips on organization are worth the price alone. That is one of my big problems. I feel that just by getting organized I am maximizing the time I have to practice and getting great results using the rest of the lesson content.

After 8 weeks, I can definitely say that the value of a good teacher can never be overstated!! I think you've packed more into those 8 weeks than all my previous teachers combined. I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings. I did not know how much I was missing by studying on my own or with less capable teachers. I'm 100% satisfied with the way things are progressing. The articles are great motivators, always reminding me that the next breakthrough is just around the corner and not to get frustrated, and to always stay focused because my goals are within reach. It's good to know that all the great musicians have been through the same trials, self doubt, and frustration because it keeps you going knowing it can be done.

At first I was surprised at the amount of material in the lessons and was concerned I wouldn't be able to get through it all, but having a practice regimen has enabled me to keep pace and I've seen a substantial increase in my abilities both in theory and technique. Tom is a master instructor ­ he knows what his students need and exactly when they need it to keep them constantly moving forward. If I hadn't started studying under Tom, I'd still be spending the next 20 years chasing my dreams. Instead, I'm on my way to playing the music I want to play, the way I want to play it.

The lessons are going great. I think the most important thing that I am getting from your lessons is the mentoring, advice, motivation, plans/structure to reach my dreams. That stuff is priceless and extremely valuable.

I feel a little strange at the beginning to get some correspondence course, but well, after reading your article I was convince. It's been three month now and I really can feel and hear the difference - rhythm, aural skill, theory knowledge, composition. Now, I understand what you mean with a good teacher and lot of motivation : I feel (no, I know!) I can reach my goal with your help. I hope one day I can get more often your lesson, it's really worth it. Thanks Tom, now I'm going back to work on my lesson!

Received the 14th lesson today, again all great stuff Tom. The Rhythm Guitar CD was awesome and I went through all of it once already. I was at Jonathan's house and we were talking about how his lesson with you are going too. We both spent about 15 minutes discussing how much we've progressed so much in the past 6-8 months with you. It was also the first time I was actually on your students forum [at Jonathan's house] I can't believe how much great stuff there is to learn just by reading all the great posts made there by some of your more advanced students. These guys must also be guitar teachers too, lots of really expert advice on there. I can see now your student's forum alone is more than worth the price of the lessons!

I have tried everything and am extremely motivated but you are the first person that has shown me the REAL possibilities instead of saying "grow up---here are some guitar acrobatics so go jerk off for a while". I appreciate that and am telling everyone about you. Even my wife, who is a music lover and my worst critic sees the difference in my playing in just one month. It comes from playing everyday and changes that I made, but without your help and encouragement, I would still be paddling away at nowhere.

AWESOME videos and superb playing! I want to thank you for doing these lessons so people like me can learn what they need to know from an experienced professional and not just a local teacher that, while they may be a good player, probably don't know how to teach! I would pretty much be lost without a good guide....and you're the best guide I could have asked for! Thank you again so much, anyway time to practice!

I started taking correspondence lesson with Tom in January 2006. At the time, my playing had been stagnating and I was dealing with serious arthritis. I was quite frustrated and I felt I was going backwards. The songs I had been writing had all started to sound derivative of one another, and I couldn't seem to advance my playing. One year later, I can honestly say that those lessons represent one of the best investments in myself I ever made. Tom is not only an amazing player with a thorough knowledge of theory, he can communicate that knowledge in a way that makes it extremely easy to absorb. The lessons have been very well organized and the Improvisation Training Class has been absolutely invaluable. These materials are packed with literally hundreds of techniques I can use for extracting myself from compositional or improvisation ruts I might fall into in the future. I've learned numerous new ways of approaching the process of composition, and my playing has improved dramatically. I still struggle with the arthritis, but using the warm-up and practice methodology Tom taught me has helped me prove to myself that I CAN work through it and reach new goals.

For someone serious about music, there is no better, more efficient, or faster way to reach your goals than with Tom Hess. He's not only a master guitar player, he has mastered the art of teaching. He will help you identify your goals, decide what course of action to reach those goals, and if you put the effort in, you will have huge results. I've never had a teacher with a more fundamentally solid method than Tom Hess, in any class (any subject) or private guitar lessons. With enthusiasm for guitar, a ton of effort, and an awesome teacher like Tom, ANYONE can reach their musical goals.

Thank you for another excellent lesson, it is even better than the previous ones! But mostly I want to write thanks to you for spending your time to answer my questions and for all your advice. Many of the advices are worth more than the cost of any lesson amount. And you advised without payment in your own free time - my German teachers never do it for the students! it will be a pleasure to finally meet you when you will tour again in Germany. I regret I did not know you when you were in concert last time here.

Music Careers Mentoring Program Student Feedback

"Since I started the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I recorded my first full-length album, I gig out a lot more, I get a lot more replies from booking agencies and I quit my day job which is awesome!"

The money I invested into the Music Careers Mentoring Program is SO worth it because I would absolutely not be where I am today. Yes, it costs money but it's an investment in something that you want to get done. It really helped me accelerate so much faster, I remember the producer when i was recording my album, he was so impressed with how quickly I was moving from one point to the next. He has worked with a lot of musicians and he just said that there is not too many people he has worked with that had made as much progress and success and had moved as quickly as I have.

Lauren Bateman, Professional Musician, Boston, MA, USA

"I joined the Music Careers Mentoring Program when I was 17 years old and I think it's been a great experience, it's been very life changing for me.”

I went out of school and started my own business as a producer and as a musician, and I've been doing great since. Currently I am producing for semi-big Danish artists, and in addition, I'm playing in 3 bands. One of them is very exciting artistically for me, one is having amazing success, we've just been signed to a management with Sony Music Denmark, and the last one is making good money, so I can live off that.

Daniel Rothmann, Aarhus, Denmark

"Tom has done so much for my career... working with him has given me a big kick in the butt. There are so many things I'm pursuing now that I didn't know how to pursue and it's just been great. I would recommend it to anybody."

Just all the connections, not just with Tom but all the friends I have on the Tom Hess forum have really been supportive, motivational and really helped me to stay on track. Now I'm actually a professional musician, all my income comes from music and that was my dream! It's just getting better, there'll be more CDs, more bands that I'm playing in, hopefully some tours... I'm doing what I want to do now and I'll keep moving from here.

Nick Layton, Vancouver, WA, USA

"The Music Careers Mentoring Program is absolutely incredible, the changes that it has made - it's hard not to smile while I'm saying this because I'm so enthused about it. It has just completely changed my life."

Getting rid of debt, having freedom of time, freedom of money... I'm looking forward to creating a lifestyle for myself as a musician that's something beyond anything I would have ever dreamed. I'm the captain of my ship, I can go wherever I wanna go with it. Tom has exceeded my expectations in everything I've been involved with him.

Paul Tauterouff, Binghamton, NY, USA

“It’s been a very good experience for me, not only in terms of the content of the program itself which obviously is an excellent mix of outright knowledge, but also mentoring and getting yourself round mentally. It also opened me up to some great new people, some great new ways of working, some great opportunities which I’m taking advantage of.”

The Music Careers Mentoring Program was ideally aimed at me in terms of what I needed to transform something which was a very enjoyable hobby into something I could truly do for a living.

It has been truly transformative in many ways.

James Scott, Professional Musician , UK

“The Music Careers Mentoring Program has been totally life-changing.”

Really what has stood out for me the most is the mental training. For me it’s kind of been like the missing ingredient to start realizing my potential, not even just as a musician, as a human being really in terms of growing into the person I want to be. I used to be your stereotypical musician with a really negative attitude and almost all the stereotypes you can read about from any of Tom’s articles or some of the articles you can come across through the program or website. “You have to be in the right place at the right time, only the lucky ones make it, you gotta have some gimmick if you want to make it in music”… I had all of those thoughts. Especially the early sessions really helped me turn that kind of thinking around. Long story short - I went from all this “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t” to not only writing a song and completing it, doing it professionally, recording it, figuring it out myself with Tom’s guidance, and putting it on a CD that we’ve printed 5,000 copies of so far and I mean just taking a step back looking at it… going from the person I was to the way I think and act now…. It’s mind-blowing if you do a direct before and after comparison.

The journey, the transformation has been incredible. The Music Careers Mentoring Program for me is huge. I feel like I will probably be re-listening to and re-reading everything I’ve learned for the rest of my life and I’ll probably be finding ways to apply it to plenty of situations – music and non-music – forever. So, it’s been huge.

Jesse Froebel, Houston, Texas, USA

“I had misconceptions about the music business which were totally lifted through the Music Careers Mentoring Program, it was a mind-opening experience.”

I had many challenges, I was struggling to have long-term goals and I was struggling to implement things, having a career path designed. Everything was much more difficult, because I was missing a lot of the insider information you get through the program. You get to learn a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t even think was relevant!

And you are surrounded by great people who have the same goals and that’s an empowering force for you. I’m now a full time professional musician. I can pay my bills, eat, dress, all through music! My life looks totally different now.

"Some time ago before I joined the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I was kind of wandering in the wilderness… that’s the way that I felt. Been a musician for a long time and certainly the musical side of things wasn’t really a problem. I mean, I can play. I can write good songs. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was, I had really no ideas about the business side of things."

I think maybe when people are younger they really, they only think about the music… they don’t realize that, that being a musician or being in a band or whatever it is a business, and you kind of have to treat it like a business. And you have to have the right kind of mindset.

So I went through the Music Careers Mentoring Program. Completed the program and I feel like that it helped me to have a much greater clarity about things and have a better mindset. And really to be a better person and to learn a lot of things that could apply not only to music but to life in general and how I deal and interact with other people. And that’s helped me a lot how I interact with the people in the band that I’m in. Interacting with my students and it’s really been great, there were a lot of great quotes that came from that program, things that I remember. One of them that’s really affected my life is that it’s not about who’s right, it’s about what’s right. And that’s kind of become one of my mantras that I take with me. And I try to keep that in mind when I’m interacting with other people.

I would recommend the Music Careers Mentoring Program to any musicians out there. And I have recommended it to several musicians. Anyone who’s feeling like they're not where they want to be with their career, or they're not achieving their goals as a musician, because it’s really really great.

Being around the other students of Tom Hess is very inspiring, because I can see that they are also success-minded and very motivated people. They're not getting distracted by things that I would consider negative. They're really people that I believe know how to win. And it’s very cool to meet some of these people, people that I went through the Music Careers Mentoring Program with, or people that I’ve interacted with on the forum. Yeah it’s very cool to finally meet these guys and exchange ideas.

The forum is quite helpful when you maybe having some kind of problem, either on the music side of things, for example if you have questions about music theory or on the business side of things if you're not sure how to progress or overcome certain obstacles in your teaching business. Everybody on the forum is there, and is willing to share their experience and to help people with that.

William Edmundson, Chattanooga, Tennessee

"The main reason that I like to be in the Music Careers Mentoring Program is because it gave me direction of what to do how to do it and what I need to do next. It really focused a lot of things that I kind of knew that I needed to do, but it laid out a path for me to follow and it was very focused and concise."

The Music Careers Mentoring Program has elevated my status as a musician where I’ve been able to present myself in a much more professional way as a guitar player, as a musician, as somebody aspiring to be in the music business.

The Music Careers Mentoring Program has had a positive effect on everything related to my career. The imaging part of it, presenting yourself as a professional and therefore being treated as a professional... I’ve gotten an invaluable result from that. Endorsements from manufacturers. the perception of my professionalism. Just even just on a local level. Yeah.

Oh it’s incredibly inspiring. You get to see other people growing with you or either are further along than you and all the things... cool things that they’ve attained... and then you see the other people who are a little behind you in progress in the program and you can see yourself in them and see how much you’ve grown since then.

The forum is a great tool of... it’s interesting because a lot of the times the answers to your questions are right there from your peers... so Tom Hess is accessible, but you can instantly have an answer from just the information that’s already been there on the forum from people who proceeded you or you can have an MCMP person right there on the forum and they might be able to help you out immediately.

Mark Turko, Thomaston, Connecticut, USA

“The Music Careers Mentoring Program has really helped me to focus on what I want to achieve with my music and the music business. It gave me really good ideas on how to develop myself as a musician, how to develop my songwriting, which direction to take, etc. It’s been fantastic so far!”

Before I joined the program I was taking the trial and error approach, I was trying out some things, not really sure what was working and what wasn’t. I wanted to get some expert advice on how to build a career. It’s really important to have someone who knows what they are talking about, telling you what to do and how to improve stuff. Now it’s moving from thinking about stuff to actually doing it!

Tom also has been really good with answering questions. He is there and it feels good to have someone who’s guiding you.

Dielle Lodrick, Professional Musician, and Songwriter, Portsmouth, UK

“My experience with the Music Careers Mentoring Program is really great! I’m building my career, I feel much more confident about myself as a musician. I took some steps to move my music career forward and I can see some things happening right now.”

Before, I didn’t know what to do. I was really frustrated. I didn’t know what to do and I was looking for some help. I found Tom and since then I feel like I’m doing the right things. I’ve got directions, I’ve got someone who basically holds my hand during this process.

Greg X, Professional Musician and Guitar Teacher, London, UK

“I can imagine that some people are skeptical, they may say “I can’t have a music career because of this, this and this. It’s not always easy to see for people that it’s possible, so most people are afraid that they will fail, or their family will say it’s not possible, just get a day job and choose security… many will do this and they will miss a GREAT opportunity!”

When I first joined the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I just left college and was looking for a job. Right now, after I joined, I have left my day job and I’m making 5 times more money than before and could build my career much faster.

“I’ve done what’s in the Music Careers Mentoring Program and made some great advances, and hope to make many many more.”

I’m a full time musician, I have my own music instruction business and I’m a full time musician. I’m part of a band called Firewolfe with one other member from Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program. Nick Layton is the other guitar player and we’ve been able to work together. We just put out an album a couple months ago. We just signed a record deal with a Japanese label, Rubicon Music. So we’ll be distributed in Japan. We’ve made many contacts and many steps in the industry where we’re going to continue to move forward in other parts of the world. And hopefully continue this for a long time and continue to grow it. That’s the biggest thing I got from the Music Careers Mentoring Program, to be able to do something on a level where I’ve always wanted to do that, where I’ve thought about that you know, above and beyond just you know trying to be a local guitar hero… trying to get things out to that next level, and continue to go to the next level from there.

The time and money that I’ve invested into the Music Careers Mentoring Program has definitely been worth it. I make my living as a musician, as a full time musician, so anything I’ve invested I’ve gotten back and beyond. It’s made it possible to have a schedule and a life that allows me to do what I want to do. As a musician, one of the greatest obstacles I face is having time to work on your band, to work on your album, to work on the business side of things. And if you have a full time job in some other industry that completely drains you of your energy and your time, maybe you’re working 60 hours a week, you don’t have the time to devote to these other things that you really want to do in your music career. So Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program has help me set myself up in a way to where I have the freedom of time, and the freedom of money and those valuable resources so I can put them where I want to put them to be able to do the things that I want to do.

It’s really motivating to be around other members of the Music Careers Mentoring Program…. Nick Layton the other guitar player in Firewolfe is in the Music Careers Mentoring Program. Nick and I would’ve never met had we not come together through Tom. So none of this would’ve been happening on the level that it’s happening.

A lot of things that I learned in Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program apply directly to Firewolfe in the way that we promote. The way we’ve learned how to promote the band, that I’ve learned how to promote the band. Organization… structure… how to handle the business side of things and get organized so you can get things done and not just sit there and spin your wheels. I think from what I see talking to other people, and what I see online, you get bands, they’ll get an album done and then they go, then what? So you got a CD done, you’ve invested all this time into writing these songs, getting your production together, getting the duplication done, and now you’ve got these boxes of CD’s and you have no idea what to do with them, they just sit there. So the biggest, one of the biggest benefits I’ve gotten from the Music Careers Mentoring Program is learning you know how to promote and how to lay the ground work, how to build relationships within the industry, finding ways to present yourself so that you have value to those people in the industry that will help them want to work with you, so it’s a mutually beneficial relationship that you can create. You know those principles from Tom’s programs have been really really valuable. Not only for the planning on how we were going to do things, but you know the implementation of that so we didn’t just have a CD full of great music and now no way to get it out there. So it’s been big. It’s been really big for the band.

Paul Kleff, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

“One of the reasons I chose to be mentored by Tom Hess in the Music Careers Mentoring Program was, Tom had done it. He had built up a career. He established himself, he established a reputation as a musician.”

He had done pretty much all of the things that I wanted to do, or want to do as a musician, and was basically giving me the opportunity to learn from his experience, his mistakes, what worked, what didn’t work and that was very intriguing for me, because for myself, and I’m sure this is true for many other musicians, you know you practice the instrument, but there’s nobody really out there who is talking about “How do you get into the industry?”, “How do you get started?”, “How do you make a name for yourself?”, there really isn’t anybody who does that other than Tom.

When I first started with the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I had no music career. I was a bedroom player. I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to play. I wanted to write like most people. But of course, wanting something is very different than actually doing it. Being involved in the program really showed me, really prepared me to get out and actually make those changes. I’ve been to this point, I’ve been involved in a number of different bands, we’ve done recordings… we’ve done some fairly large shows… I’ve been establishing my reputation, and I’m getting more and more known in my area, which is really awesome.

Additional Student Feedback

“The Music Careers Mentoring Program may very well be one of the best, most inspirational things I’ve ever been part of! Tom has actually inspired me to go out and DO things, stay motivated and proactive every day!”

I really want to thank Tom for that, I don’t know where my career would be if I hadn’t joined the Music Careers Mentoring Program, but it would definitely NOT be where it is now!

Daniel Rothmann, Professional Musician,
Aarhus, Denmark

“Tom, thank you for putting together the MCMP! It is genius to have created a network of musicians which, by definition, is collaborative, innovative, energized, and supportive. I didn't know what I was getting into when I signed up....and it is 10 times better than I could have ever imagined!”

The community alone – without the MCMP sessions themselves – is incredible! It is REALLY inspiring how the MCMP is a huge force for good in so many peoples’lives, as we all help and support each other. It’s exponential!

Adrienne Osborn, Professional Musician,
Boulder, Colorado

“I've learned more things than I expected, in a wide range of issues about the music industry. Before that, my music awareness was pretty vague, I didn't know exactly what to do.”

Tom knows what he's talking about. It's crystal clear, what he says makes total sense. He is very knowledgeable about music - about music AND the business part.

I know I will succeed. And Tom really enforces that feeling even more.

John Kakalas, Tessaloniki, Greece

“I got a lot more than I ever thought I could get out of the program! It's been great, especially meeting some of the other members and creating professional relationships with other musicians. You have a lot of peer support and knowledge from the other people in the program.”

One of the major issues was to find out how to go from a normal day job that you don't really see yourself doing happily to pursuing your passion, something that you love to do. That's probably one of the biggest things I've learned - how to do what I love to do more and more and be able to support myself. If you take the time and implement the things you are learning in the program, they will absolutely work for you!

Johnny Ryan, Professional Musician, Colorado, USA

“I've been working with Tom for about 6 months now and it's been a fantastic experience. It's been very inspiring, it's been very good in terms of the cooperation and encouragement from other members, and guidance and inspiration to empower myself to grow continuously. I wouldn't trade it for anything!”

What I've done before joining the Music Careers Mentoring Program was basically survival musicianship career-wise and I was getting by, but I didn't really know what to do to get to the next level. So I was feeling a little bit stuck in that rut and getting engaged in the Music Careers Mentoring Program helped me to understand what I needed to do.

My reputation in my area has increased and the type of work that I'm getting has improved. I'm working with people far outside of my area, in other countries which I would not have envisioned myself doing before.

Jim Dix, Professional Musician, Florida, USA

“My outlook on music and life changed rapidly once I started working with Tom. Everything that was holding me back was now put in front of me to deal with and a lot easier to deal with once you know what you are against.”

Once you see results, you know obviously that it's something good that is happening, that what's begin taught is quality.

The program helped me to make ties and connections with musicians that are higher up on the ladder of musicians and producers and everything and anything between. If it wasn't for the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I wouldn't be working with the producer I'm working with now.

Mark Court, Professional Musician,
Ontario, Canada

“The best thing about the Music Careers Mentoring Program is having a coach who knows what needs to be done to succeed in a music career and telling you and helping you along the way to succeed.”

I went pretty much from nothing, a guy that practiced in his bedroom every night and then, thanks to the help of the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I started pursuing auditions with bands and I got into 2 bands now and doing regular gigs of which some are fairly large gigs.

Chris Weyers, Seattle, WA, USA

“The Music Careers Mentoring Program has been a real eye-opener. There are many things you would think would be common sense, but you really, really don't think about and they are just the really wow to work with.”

The music thing was something I really wanted to do, but I didn't know HOW to do it. The projects that we've been doing have been really great projects which will put you a BIG step ahead in your music career.

Nathaniel Dashnaw, South Carolina, USA

“I really like being in the Music Careers Mentoring Program because it's just so innovative. Once you get into it, it's just so in depth and you can really find ways to connect to it in your every day life, not just in music, but just in everything you do.”

The Music Careers Mentoring Program is totally worth it to me. I looked at it and I was like "this is less expensive than a college course and it's going to be so specific and exactly what I need. I've heard stories of people that came out of university and college and they didn't really get anywhere. They learned a lot of stuff, but they didn't really - at the end of it - know what to do with what they had gained and the Music Careers Mentoring Program really helps you just utilize what you know right now and applying it to what you can do today as opposed to what you imagine you could do in years.

Jonah Kay, Kitchener, ON, Canada

“I learned from all these professors at school, got my degree and I was playing with all these bands and musicians, but I didn't really have a mentor who did what I want to accomplish.”

The MCMP gears you up to actually doing things, it's not just information. You have to go out and do things and that's how you accomplish your goals.

Chris Fiore, Long Island, NY, USA

"As a mentor and teacher, Tom has had a profound influence on my development as a musician and more importantly, my level of fulfillment as a person who is now living their passion.”

Tom has an exceptional level of knowledge and understanding in music, music business and how to effectively teach music, and he delivers this with a holistic, highly-detailed and goal-oriented approach. Tom's teaching style is bold and powerful, and unlike many teachers, he actually has the credential's to back up what he preaches, having already achieved international success as a touring and recording artist and world-class guitarist.

Chris Ball, singer/guitarist/songwriterMelbourne, Australia

The Music Careers Mentoring Program is an absolute must for anyone who is dead serious about succeeding in the music business. If your heart is set on achieving success in music and you are looking for guidance on how to do it, this program is for you.

Taught by an experienced pro, the program really teaches all the ins and outs of "making it" in the music industry. The program is more than merely "lessons on tape." There is a lot of "hands on" training taking place as Tom guides the students through a variety of reputation and experience building projects. You also have the unique opportunity to interact and establish positive relationships with other serious and dedicated musicians who are just as serious about becoming music professionals as you are! Where else can you find that?

Tom does a superb job of explaining the mental attitudes and beliefs that all successful musicians have in common and he also guides you step by step through some actual projects that will significantly boost anyone's reputation in the music industry even if they have zero prior experience.

I found myself transformed as a person is some very positive and empowering ways and I'm totally confident now that my success in music will only be a matter of time.

First off, because Tom Hess' name is attached to this class you know it is world-class instruction that you simply can't find anywhere else. A career in music is broken down and information is shared that most people spend a lifetime trying to figure out. I guarantee that if you follow the concepts and ideas in the MCMP you will see a significant difference in the direction of your career. If you apply the knowledge you gain you cannot fail. It amazes me that Tom would be so willing to give this information away freely. He continues to revolutionize the methods of guitar instruction.

Tom Hess's Music Careers Mentoring Program has taught the most incredible amount about the music industry and how to succeed in this industry. Through this program, I realized what I needed to do to become very successful in such a demanding industry. I can honestly say that without this program, I would never have become who I am today and reached the level of success that I have. Thank you Tom.

I had recently finished my music degree and felt like I needed guidance career wise. I had received very useful and informative careers advice in music school, but it didn't fit with my own goals. I was very impressed by the selection process Tom Hess uses to find people that would fit into this type of project. I feel very fortunate to have Tom Hess as my careers mentor, the information and the way in which he lectures is very inspirational. Also the projects are very interesting and important for furthering my career. I would and do recommend this program to anyone who is interested in furthering their career.

When I first approached Tom Hess I was still searching for direction in my dream of having a career as a professional musician. I have believed for many years now that this dream was my destiny--but I was frustrated because I felt like things weren't progressing the way they should be, and I wasn't sure what steps to take next.

Tom approached me about entering the Music Careers Mentoring Program (MCMP) in the fall of 2005. This program has changed everything for me. I now wake up every day with a clear sense of purpose. I have many various projects and assignments I'm working on that will all further my music career.

Tom has been/and continues to be a great musical mentor to me. Tom has a ton of experience in the music business and had to learn all he is teaching in the MCMP the hard way. His combined experience and fresh approach has no doubt saved me years of struggling to find my own way. I felt for many years that I was wandering down a dark hallway....feeling around for doors or windows that could help light the path to my dreams. The MCMP turned the lights on all at once and showed me where I was and where I needed to go--and how to get there. Tom Hess is not only a great mentor, but I also consider him a friend.

Speaking of friends--maybe the greatest thing that has happened since I joined the program is that I've made a bunch of new friends. These people are not only very talented musicians but also great people. I'm sure many of them will be friends for life! As part of the MCMP we are constantly helping each other in our individual careers, and also working together on various projects. What a great thing it has been to have a support network of musicians from all over the world working together to make our dreams come true!

I am now more excited and fired up than I have ever been about my career as a professional musician!

Being in the MCMP has changed my musical career, as well as life in so many ways. Not only have I learned about many different aspects in music business; but as well what it takes to be a successful person in the industry. Before I was in the program I was hoping to become a great musician someday. Now, I am excited as I see my goals and desires getting closer and closer each day. This program is all about personal growth on many levels.

The Music Careers Mentoring Program is everything I hoped it would be and more. It has helped me tremendously and will continue to do so long into the future. I now have a focus and a road to follow to achieve everything I want in music. The program is giving me the tools and insight to create my own opportunities and manifest my dreams into a reality.

Coming from the perspective of someone who already had a full-time teaching career in the Music Industry prior to entering the Tom Hess Music Careers Mentoring Program; it has still proven itself to be of major benefit to my career and to my growth as a person as well.

Tom Hess is the real deal! He has achieved major success as both a successful musician and recording artist, selling thousands of records worldwide, and as a teacher.

In the MCMP, Tom's approach is highly unusual in that he doesn't just give you a bunch of information about the industry and how it works; he also addresses the many other factors that are key to achieving success. For instance, he works on your way of thinking, and how to purge yourself of negative disempowering beliefs. He teaches you how to work with others, and puts you in many situations where group interaction is necessary to accomplish the projects that he assigns you. In short, he teaches you how to be a successful PERSON in general, and gives you the opportunity to apply these techniques to relevant industry-specific projects that will greatly enhance your career.

But not only is his approach highly unusual, it is also highly effective. Having taught hundreds of students myself, I know when I see an effective method. And I am lucky enough to be one who can live out this method.

You actually work on your career while being in this program. You don't just sit around and listen; you get up and act. It's hands on, it's a lot of work sometimes, and it's a lot of fun too. Since entering the program, my life and career has been changing direction, and has plotted a very positive course towards my goals and dreams.

Whether you want to improve your already existing music career, or want to build one from scratch, the Tom Hess MCMP is the place to be.

I must admit I was a little unsure about what to expect when Tom suggested I sign up for this program but within a matter of weeks this had all been turned around. I wish to become a teacher and professional recording artist and I have found every session of this program to be a great asset to my development. Tom has worked me harder than I have ever worked but the end result is that I know that I cannot fail to reach any of my goals with Tom's teaching and Mentoring behind me. I advise ANYONE no matter how much you think you know, to get involved in this course. You will not be disappointed.

Tom, I know I've told you this before, but once again I have to say how your MCMP has been the greatest investment I have ever made in my music career and myself. Before joining this program I subscribed to the false Belief that you had to be a "rock star" to have a career in the music business. Thanks for helping me to learn the truth. I have made more Progress in my music career in the short time I have been studying with you than I did in the past 20-something years on my own and without any proper guidance. I keep reviewing past sessions and amazed at how much useful information is packed into each one. The motivational aspects have helped me to develop the proper mindset to be successful and the other topics (endorsements, tax tips, promotion, releasing CD's, etc.) have given tools and me the knowledge I need to reach my goals. After years of treading water I am finally accomplishing things; I will be on three CD's this year, and also release my first instructional materials. I especially love the fact that since I am running my own teaching business the cost of all of the sessions is a tax write-off for me!

The connections and opportunities alone that the Music Careers Mentoring Program creates are invaluable. And if that's not enough, you get information that pro musicians have spent years learning through trial and error (with out having to go through the trial and error process yourself).

Hey! My name is Teemu Kleemola. I've been playing guitar over 15 years. Currently I'm studying in Tom Hess' Music Careers Mentoring Program and also via his Correspondence Lessons, with which I started out with in the start. After reading Tom's articles and playing and listening to the correspondence lessons I realized that Tom Hess is really something and studying with him is now invaluable for me. What the MCMP is for me is to have the right mindset in everything you do, to make effective plans to reach your ultimate goals, to start forming relationships with the right people, to be involved in great projects that help you to grow into the music business, to work with highly motivated and supportive forum members around you (many of which are already professional musicians) and to have a superior virtuoso guitarist, teacher and mentor who is totally committed to help you and show you the path to success by talking to you every ten days. If music is what you love and you want to have success in the music business, I recommend you to take serious forward moving actions on a consistent basis with the guidance of Tom Hess.

The music Careers Mentoring Program is one of the best investments a musician could make to take their musical career to the next level. The amount of information is much valued lasting many times over, throughout a person's musical career. It has helped me tremendously, improving my level of success in the music industry tenfold. Tom Hess is a very personable, positive instructor, and he is also a great human being.

The value of the Music Careers Mentoring Program cannot be underestimated. Throughout the sessions, Tom Hess methodically paints the perfect picture of the highly successful, famous, wealthy, and professional musician and the steps one should take to reach such a goal. But this program goes FAR beyond a physical guide (i.e.: who to send your demo to, finding the right audience, marketing yourself, etc). Through planning and organization of the greatest care, Tom "dissects" the mind of the pro musician and points out each and every mental characteristic that led to that musician's success, and how they have led to his own success. Such a focus on the mental aspects of the pro musician is also essential in order to ensure sustained, long-term success in the music industry. This (along with many more topics) is covered in great detail throughout the MCMP. As far as how this program has helped my own musical career, I'm 100% confident that I will be able to attain ALL my goals (even the non-musical ones) because of Tom's teaching and mentoring. For that alone, participating in this program has easily been the single best investment I've made yet. It has literally changed my life.

I am very glad I decided to join the MCMP. I've used the information in the MCMP to greatly advance my own career. It has a lot of crucial info I haven't been able to find anywhere else. The MCMP has been an important investment that will pay off for the rest of my life. Thanks Tom!

The Tom Hess Music Careers Mentoring Program is literally life changing. I was first hesitant about it because I didn't know anything about it and this could easily be a "fraud". Either way, I basically weight my options and noticed that if this was a fraud I would loose a couple bucks and I would at least KNOW about it. Well, its NO fraud and it has shaped my musical career in a way never imaginable. I was exited, scared, curious and felt like I had just taken a leap into the unknown. Thank God I did! I've always thought that I had a certain calling with music, but I never knew how to get to my goals and without a doubt, the MCMP has placed me in a road that will only lead me to success!!!! Now, you might think this is only a "positive outlook and hints to do things" Well it is, and its not. The MCMP literally shows you what to do, and if you don't do it, you fall behind in the class. You have to be prepared to work for your career and your success because it wont be given to you...but trust me, email me if you must, the MCMP will change your life forever!

Tom's MCMP has been to this point, hands down the most informative and eye opening experience for me. There are so many valuable lessons and topics that you will not find out there in books or various websites that are really just selling you a product. Although the MCMP is, in a sense a product that Tom sells, there is more to this than just reading about the music business. Tom is a pro and actually shares his insights and experiences on making it in the music business and as a "student" I am starting to take the right steps to get my music career going. There is a ton of things that I have learned thus far and the fellow students who are just as serious, are all great people. Tom is a very inspiring person, musician, teacher and mentor and I'm so glad I got involved with this program. Thanks!

It's crazy and rare how certain people affect your life. Not just guitar, but how you approach life. This program has reinforced both. Nothing much more to say than it has been a life-changing experience being in this program. If MUSIC is what you want, Tom is THE person to show the way.

Dear Tom, I just wanted to say that the MCMP is proving to be an absolutely amazing experience. I was a bit worried at first due to only being an intermediate player, but I am learning so much and I am progressing as a musician at a rate that I did not think possible. I feel that this is due in a large part to your mentoring in the MCMP, the projects that we are undertaking and the support and interaction with the other participants.
Thanks again,

My investment in Tom Hess's Music Careers Mentoring Program (MCMP) for my own musical journey has been worth every penny. The returns I have gotten from this program are MANY! There is no question that I will continue to reap the benefits of this program long after I have completed it.

I took some time to ask others about the MCMP and did a lot of thinking before I applied. There were things I had in mind I wished to gain before I got started. I have received much more than I expected!

I really doubt there is any program like the MCMP anywhere else. This program addresses many aspects from the deep mental issues that can hinder or feed ones musical success, to ideas and wisdom about various topics related to the business, to practical exercises that can be used to build ones own personal musical resume. On top of that Tom has surrounded us with other "serious" musicians and quality people to learn from and to offer additional support.

Tom Hess is an intelligent person and I think he has a lot of experience as a professional musician. Also he has a lot of ideas, but the most important thing is that he is so organized and he knows what he is doing and he knows where he is going with that...and the MCMP shows proof of that.

MCMP is not magic; actually I thought that signing up for this program could be - a waste of money because it sounded like magic!!! But when I checked his website for the first time and I read his columns on ibreathmusic.com, I learned from him as a life example in front of me. To tell the truth -especially for people who haven’t signed up yet and they are reading my testimonial- Tom in his sessions makes you face your weaknesses and face yourself ... and .. MAKE YOU BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF... not only as a musician but also as a human being (at least it did so for me). So you will be able to decide if this industry is for you, did you make the right choice by choosing this career path or not?

At first I was VERY skeptical, how can a guy teach me to have a music career over the Internet and I wasn't too familiar with Tom. I had only read some of his articles on ultimate-guitar.com. I thought I'll submit my application just to see if I get in and if I don't like it I can always cancel. Well, after I submitted my application, the next day I got an email from Tom saying he wanted me in. I signed up still skeptical to what the program was. Due to a mix up Tom wasn't sure I had actually signed up and he Actually Took The TIME TO CALL ME, TO MAKE SURE I WAS IN! My impression started to change.

The first session I was impressed, then with each session after I was like this guy KNOWS what he's talking about, this is what I've been looking for (the mentor part from Think And Grow Rich). He was not only teaching what EXACTLY to do! But he was giving us the overall mindset (mind virus, a Good one to catch!) how to think about the music business, "Perception is EVERYTHING." He was also putting the puzzle pieces together of the music industry, and separating popular myth from FACT. He really inflated my ego when he told about how now in the music industry big record companies do NOT want drug addicts as opposed to popular myth that is spread by ignorant people who have only heard about what it was like in the 70's. I feel like now (and we still have more to go!) I could have a career or even manage a band to the big time. This is definitely worth it! I wish I had this when I was just starting out playing. GREAT JOB TOM!

Being a part of Tom's Music Careers Mentoring Program is a huge honor for many obvious reasons. One of which is because I'm a fan of his music but also because of Tom's willingness to explain everything relating to the music business. I'm really beginning to understand how I can venture out into the music industry and manifest my own destiny. Tom really lays it out on the line on how exactly to go from that guy that plays guitar in their bedroom to the world class, touring musician. He lets you know the pitfalls to avoid and the express routes to take to reach your own dreams towards music and in your personal life. With that said, the gigantic amount of opportunities as well as the amount of talented guitarist I got to work with has made my future that much brighter. I can honestly say 100% that the Music Careers Mentoring Program was one of the best things I have ever been a part of, thanks Tom!

I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old. I saw AC/DC open up for Aerosmith at my first concert and I knew right then and there what I wanted to do when I grew up, just like millions of other kids that saw that tour and many others that followed. But I felt like I was different than many other kids out there that wanted to be guitar heros and rock stars. I truly felt that I had a gift; a calling that was taking me in a direction that was pre-destined to guarantee success. It was just a matter of time.

By the time I was 16 my band was playing bars 4-5 nights a week. We were announced on one of Detroit’s premiere radio stations as one of Detroit’s best up and coming bands. We had a fairly large following, especially for our age. This fueled my drive and made me even more convinced that the path I was headed down was leading me directly to a recording contract with Warner Brother’s. My goal was to be signed to them by the time I was 21 and I was on my way.

My grades in high school suffered a great deal because I was playing all the time. School just wasn’t important to me. You see, I didn’t really need school because I was going to be a rich rock star by the time I was 21 anyway. I decided to quit in the 12th grade to give me more time to focus on my music career. My mother and high school principal convinced me to graduate, so I did. But I had to go an additional half a year the following school year because of my grades.

A small price to pay knowing what laid ahead for me. Besides, it would be some great material when I started doing interviews!

Move ahead a few years. My band is broke up and some of them have moved to California. I’m playing with a few different people, recorded a song and did a video that was played on a local cable show on their debut show with Ozzy (yes, Randy Rhoads was in the band) and Sammy Hagar. This was cool and I was feeling like a soon to be rock star. My plan was to jam around until I decide what my next move is to get me back on track.

During this time I suffered a severe injury to my left hand, severing 2 tendons and 90% of the nerves. The doctors told me I would never play guitar again. I think you can imagine the feeling.

Through sheer determination, divine intervention and about a year of physical therapy and pain I persevered and was able to beat the odds and play guitar again. Although some damage was permanent and I had to learn to adapt. Now I’m thinking, "look at what I’ve overcome! If I can get over this nothing can stop me"! So I packed my bags and went to California to re-group with some of the old band.

I’m on my way!

Going to California was a dream come true. Guns-N-Roses had just hit it big out of the California club circuit, Warrant was big and about to leave and I was heading out to the land of rock-n-roll milk and honey and all was well. Just a matter of time now!

Some of the original band was reformed with a new drummer (who now plays for Unwritten Law) and bass player. We recorded, played the sunset strip and some local festivals and were having a good time doing so. We were going to NAMM shows and other places and meeting some of the biggest names in music. I just knew someone big from a record company was going to see us playing at a club and sign us on the spot. After all, that’s how it’s done, right?!

Two years later and still no deal, I get a call from a friend back home asking me to join his band. They had signed with a production company and had major label interest. They had a huge following playing the biggest clubs in Detroit. They wanted me to get there as quick as possible to record a few songs so they could send them to Virgin and Geffen Records. The manager was a previous executive at the Record Plant in New York and used to manage Ted Nugent in the early days.

THIS IS IT!!! I’m heading home now! Sorry guys I got to go!

Within two weeks I had moved back to Michigan, recorded three songs and was playing my first show with my new band. The place was packed! Everyone wanted to see the new guitar player in the band. Local music scene publications were printing stuff regarding the buzz going around about us getting signed soon. Over the next month we recorded many other songs and kept sending them to Virgin, Geffen and Warner Brother’s, at their request. Virgin was telling us they needed a big rock act because they didn’t have one at the time. They wanted us to be their answer to Def Leppard.

We were told to get our passports ready because they weren’t sure if we would be recording the album in New York or London. We were doing photo shoots, playing shows at bars and community center and recording constantly. We rented a bar that we played at frequently to record our rehearsals to watch back and improve on our live shows. We had a pro- soundman that toured with some huge names. We were on fire and I was ready!

We did a private showcase for Virgin Records and to our surprise didn’t get signed on the spot. They weren’t happy with our singer’s performance. Long story short we got rid of him and flew out my singer from California to audition for the production company we were signed with. They loved him, as I knew they would, but Tony didn’t want to move unless we had a record deal locked in. So we kept looking for the right person locally and to make a long story short the band broke up.

Disheartened and tired from the last four years I decided to take a break. This break ended up lasting 10 years and I got into a different career, got married and started a family. Wow, what happened to my dream?!

After time I realized that I had to create music. It was a part of me that I had denied for far too long and some personal events happened in my life that made me 100% certain that music had to be a part of my life again.

I started getting together with some old friends and having a good time. This time I knew what I had done wrong in the past and how to go about it the right way. You know the saying, if I knew then what I know now I would have made it? I got real serious and starting taking guitar lessons. I had ideas of how to make it work this time. I was older, wiser, had more resources, I could do it now. Or so I thought.

After trying the things I knew would work this time and taking guitar lessons from a teacher and getting nowhere for about two years, I stumbled onto Tom Hess. I was impressed with his playing, his credentials and his teaching philosophy so I decided to start taking correspondence lessons from him. I was amazed with the content of the lessons and his well thought out approach and method of teaching. I started learning at a rapid rate and watched my guitar playing skills improve dramatically in a short period of time. This bolstered my confidence and made me take a good look at my life and what I wanted to do. Where was I going with all this, anyway?

I started reading about Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program and became interested. I decided to sign up for the next class, which was a few months’ out. Very early in the program the question came up in a session regarding what my state of mind was about creating and establishing a career in the music business. How serious was I and how bad did I want this for my life? Was I passionate about it?

My mind set at the time was "It would be cool to be able to have some kind of career in the music business on top of what I do with my day job, if I could make it work. If not I'll do something and still enjoy and if I make a little money that's great".

Keep in mind I have a family, I’m a lot older now than I was when I was intensely pursuing a career in music, plus I’ve got a good job. I figured it was going to be too difficult have a real career in music. But hey, I’m sure this guy Hess can at least get me to where I am more active than I am now and if I make a few bucks, life is good. I had no idea how my life was about to change.

When I first started in music I thought I needed to work hard and wait until someone discovered me. Then when I was older and wiser I just knew I had the right ideas to make it. When I started Tom’s Music Career Mentoring Program I found out just how far off target I really was. I realized there was absolutely no way I would have been able to have a career in music with the direction I was going using the information I had drawn from all those years of experience in the past. What an eye opener!

I became very, very excited! It was like a door opened and I could see a clear path beginning. I thought, this guy is serious and he knows his stuff. As the program continued my mindset changed right in front of me.

I went from:

"It would be cool to be able to have some kind of career in the music business on top of what I do with my day job, if I could make it work. If not I'll do something and still enjoy and if I make a little money that's great".

To:

"I will have a career in the music business and work in my current field while I build my music career. I will establish my short-term goals in a way that will get me to my long-term goals. I will assess my current financial and lifestyle situation and make adjustments that will not only improve my family's quality of life but will also position me to make the transition from part time to full time musician. Etc…."

I get hyped thinking about it!

Since starting the Music Career Mentoring Program I've seen a veil removed and my vision getting very clear. I can now actually see another career developing. I mean truly see it! Not just desire it but actually see how it can, and will, and is becoming reality in a practical, sensible, calculated manner. The lessons learned are so life changing and the information is real world application, not just philosophies that you have to figure out how to apply.

I'm actually seeing my new career in the music business slowly become a reality because it’s happening! Real applications that require you to actually follow Tom’s direction and complete the task when you’re done you haven’t just completed a class project. You’ve completed an item on the list of things that must be done to establish a career in music! And none of this was on my own list of to do’s. This program brings real, tangible results!

I am 100% certain that I am in the process of transitioning from my current profession to one in the music business. It’s happening right now!

It's just a matter of time. And I'm not talking like a hyped up "Amway" want to be that's trying to convince myself of something. This is the real deal and I am so excited!

I always wondered what I would do if I couldn't work in the field I am in. Especially, since I don’t have a degree my options are very limited in the job market. However, this program has given me a new lease on life and showed me how it’s actually done.

Now I can truly say, "If I knew then what I know now ……" I’ll spare you the rest.

Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle Student Feedback

Guitar Teachers from all over the world give feedback about the results they got from working with Tom in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. Watch their videos below and scroll down the page to read additional comments.

“Within 7 months, I stopped working my day job and started teaching guitar full time. I have noticed a 200% increase in income, enjoyed 100% better quality of life and my financial and day job related problems have disappeared.”

The bottom line is that Tom’s strategy WORKS. I would have never thought of looking at all the business related factors that can go into making a guitar teaching business. Before I made enough to live from guitar teaching but needed a day job to support myself and my wife. Now I'm earning more than I ever thought possible doing something that's so much fun. I can't believe I'm getting paid for it!

“Tom Hess has changed my life. He has helped me teach my guitar students better, and helping me get over the fact that I don’t need tons and tons of material to teach… I need concepts, and I need to teach the student rather than teaching a class. I would say that that is the single most important thing.”

Honestly, I wasn’t seeking help, it came to me. A friend of mine sent me this sweep picking video of Tom, he was like check out this guy he is crazy good. I was like wow this is really good, and at the bottom of the YouTube video it said do you want to make 6-figures a year teaching guitar, I said yes, so I clicked. I didn’t think it was possible to have a full time teaching business, so it had never occurred to me until that point and then I made the decision that that was going to be my career.

I sent an email to a few people who had testimonials on Tom’s sales page, and one of them emailed me back and said he was a 6 week paid vacation from teaching on the beach in the south of France, and that I needed to sign up right away.

My confidence level in teaching has gone way up. Also I can teach groups now, I only taught private lessons at first and Tom showed the benefits and the value of actually teaching in groups, and how it is more effective than teaching in private lessons, and that alone has made a huge difference in my business.

Let’s talk about how Tom Hess is making me rich. When I started out, I was making like 10 -20 thousand dollars a year teaching. And now, not only is my business running much better than it was… there’s a lot of work to do, it’s running a lot better than it was… but now, I’m in the 6-figure club. I set a goal when I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle to make $100,000 a year, and Tom Hess helped me get there. And now, we’re on the way to the 7-figure mark, and I have no doubt that he will make it happen. I mean, I have to obviously do the work, but he will help me make it happen.

My life has more flexibility now because of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. I have more money to be able to do things that I need to do for the business, and for the family. If you have $200, or if you don’t, sell your car, and invest the $200 and you will make it back. If you do everything… for me what happened is I said "alright we’ll give Tom Hess one month and we’ll see if he can really help me", and within that month I already had made my money back.

The forum is amazing value. To not be in the Platinum group and not have access to the forum is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Because the forum is such a valuable support system of people where you provide value and you receive value from others, we help each other work through questions and a lot of the times we don’t even need Tom to help us solve our issues. Granted, there are times when we do, but on the forum a lot of those things can get solved so that when we do have our phone calls with him we don’t have to focus on those minute details, we can focus on the big picture.

Sometimes just working through my frustrations with my students or the way my business is running, I’ll get on the forum and post that question or frustration, and immediately get 10 responses that say I’ve been there, I know exactly how you feel, and I’m like ok, I’m not crazy. You know, everybody can relate to me.

Tom Hess has changed my life.

Eric Bourassa, Ft.Worth, Texas, USA

"Before I started to work with Tom in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I had 2 guitar students, I now have over 50 students and my phone doesn’t stop ringing!”

I managed to gain full control over my finances (earning 4 times more than before) and my guitar teaching skills have improved a lot so that my students can be certain that they gonna get great results faster. For the first time in my life I feel independent.

The program paid off after 3 months and the investment I made is nothing compared to the huge results I got in the long term. Thanks to Tom I managed to build a really strong reputation in a very competitive city and gained a lot of satisfaction from my new life.

Greg X, Professional Musician and Guitar Teacher, London, UK

"I got 55 new students in 5 months. Within 6 months of starting the program, I have quit my non-music related job and have been a full time teacher ever since.”

My guitar teaching skills are 100% better now than they were before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle.

“My students are happy, they are progressing fast (a couple of them actually surprised me) thanks to the teaching techniques described by Tom.”

Before I began working with Tom I had no guitar students (I was not teaching guitar). The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was instrumental in having my business started. This was no small feat, giving the amount of competition in my zone (I have 2 music schools within 2 blocks from me). The techniques that Tom gave me totally bypassed this problem, and I never had any difficulty in showing the students that I was their best choice. My roster is totally full, and I have a waiting list too.

“Tom’s taught me how to really inspire my students, motivate my students and push them to achieve more than I would’ve been able to on my own. When I first started teaching I failed a couple of times. I even had my own studio before, and messed everything up, and had to go back to a regular job. And then, you know I was looking on the internet and I found Tom. And I decided to join because I was looking for a mentor who could help me achieve a teaching business that really supported the life that I wanted.”

Since joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, my guitar teaching skills have dramatically improved. My guitar teaching business went from complete crap to extremely well-off. Not only did it create a paradigm shift in my mind, you know it gave me every step I needed to for every problem I had. Every little frustration, anything from the financial side of things, to the marketing side, it gave me exactly what I needed to know… and from this, it’s just helped me get through every road block that I could’ve possibly come up against with ease, I didn’t even have to struggle.

This program has made a massive impact on my life. I went from barely making any money, in debt… you know struggling to get by to earning well over 6-figures and actually now into double 6-figures. It’s really made a huge difference on the quality of life. You know, instead of struggling and being scared of how to pay the bills every month to having so much more money each month than the average person makes in a year.

Literally Tom delivers to you so much value in this program that the amount of money you’d invest in the first month would be made back almost immediately. If you put in the effort and take action on what he tells you to do, within the first month you’ll definitely already make your money back. Within the first couple months I gained 30 students from this program… so it way exceeded my expectation.

It’s really inspiring to be in this program with other teachers who are also trying to accomplish the same goals. It really helps in the fact that you can talk to other people who are trying to do the same things as you, that are business-minded and are going through the same things that you are and you can actually talk to them, and use each other to figure out solutions to the problems you run into as a music teacher. It’s you know, extremely motivating because you’ll be more inspired to grow your business because you’ll be with other people who are trying to do the same thing and you’ll want to live up to that expectation too.

Jacob Melling, Richland, Washington

"Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, it took me a few years to recruit as many students as I did in the last couple of months, so all in all Thanks Tom for the great teachings...”

I’m making more money now and my students receive better teaching, because the program not only explains how to attract more students, but also how to give them more value for what they pay you.

“The Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle changed my life… totally totally changed my life. That’s been huge. Teaching in groups has been awesome. It’s not just here’s a lick or here’s a chord or here’s a song… it’s like Tom says 80% people and 20% teaching. So the groups are great because you can group people that are similar levels, but it’s the social interaction too I think helps a lot with students… they can see people who are sort of in the same boat as them in terms of what they want to be able to do with playing and they’re playing together so that sort of concept there is great. And just the ways to teach… strategies instead of just tactics from week to week… preparing lessons… I mean, it’s huge I can speak for hours actually.”

I’ve been teaching for 17 years and it’s been on and off. I started going to the student’s house teaching and then I did teaching in schools more recently the last 4 or 5 years. I’ve taught in shops, I’ve taught a lot and I’ve always… or more recently… probably a year before I met Tom and the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle, been sort of more thinking about setting up my own business at home for teaching, because that’s just more security, I don’t have to rely on someone else’s business or shop or school or whatever and I can sort of do things more of the way I want to do them, so that sort of made me want to do that… exactly that. So I started advertising a few fliers, a few posters… nothing too big so... Then I found the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle. I just wanted to have my own business and control, and not have to leave the house.

Tom just knows how to do the teaching side of things. I just read what he had on his website, what Tom had on his website for teaching and that was it… I was there definitely. It was just so huge. Not just teaching and business and setting up a business… and just I got the impression that when I read that I was going to be shown everything… and holding your hand … this is what you do. So I just thought if I am committed, I can’t not make this a success. I guess I just thought I got a choice… I can do it on my own, or I can have somebody who knows what they’re doing, and I always think, if you want to know how to do something, go to someone who’s done it and done it well. Just reading information on it, I just learned so just much right there without having any contact with Tom. And I just don’t know anything else like either… never come across anything like it. I know guitar teachers who just teach by default really. Great players, but not necessarily great teachers… or just clueless you know, on what to do. So just I thought I can do it myself or I can go down that route so it was a no brainer.

With the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle, my business skills have gone from nothing to pretty good. I feel like I have a lot of information that I can use that no one in my area who teaches guitar has… I can see it. You know, where I used to teach before the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle and set up my own business… it was just hopeless. So just knowing how to set up a website… optimize a website so people can actually find it… delivering flyers… making video brochures… and how to write ads… I used to just have information on how to write guitar lessons and my address and that was it.

Since joining the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle, at the time I had about 8 or 9 students at home and I was teaching in a shop, and at schools… now I’ve got 65 students, they’re all in groups… I’m just about on 6-figures… I probably am on 6 figures… I’ve at least tripled my income. I’ve been able to buy a new house, get a studio built at home… teaching studio. And for your family and kids, it’s just awesome to be able to do that. And to do that with teaching… which you love. You can get up when you want, and you’ve got time, you can make your own hours and stuff like that. To me, if you would’ve told me 18 months that I would have 65 students and that sort of income… it just wouldn’t have been conceivable… and to me that’s like, just the start. You know, I can see that doubling again… the numbers for sure. So that’s… yeah that’s just changed my life… definitely changed my life big time… mindset and just… yeah, what you can do.

I’d say to anyone who wants to join Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle who doesn’t live near me to join definitely. I mean if you’re thinking about teaching, just do it. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve been playing a couple of years or whatever, just do it, you’re going to learn so much for your own playing anyway to start with, and then you can start teaching beginners pretty early on… it’s not like you have to be at any virtuoso level to be teaching. So if you’re thinking about teaching, just do it. Make the investment and do it right.

Simon Candy, Melbourne, Australia

"Tom Hess has helped me teach my guitar students better because he’s shown me not just ideas on what to teach them, but how to actually help them whatever kind of student they are on a more kind of psychological level, how to get them practicing more, how to really get them picturing the success that they’re going to have, and actually making that a reality with the students."

I’ve got students who’ve been with me for only a year who are kicking other teacher’s students in the local area down the road with their playing, managing things in a year that other teachers have managed to teach theirs in 5 or 6 years.

I sought the help of Tom Hess because I made the decision at the time I wasn’t ever going to have a day job again. I had a few students at the time, but I just decided I was really serious that I was going to be a professional musician, and part of being a professional musician was that I wanted to teach to earn money.

And after finding some articles online, I tried out a couple of things that he was saying and I was like, okay if these things work and this is the free stuff, well let’s see what he has to offer with his pay stuff. And I think within two weeks of actually paying for the course, I’d already got enough students to pay off what the course was costing me. And then everything else after that was profit and new students and it was awesome.

Since I started the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, my business has improved massively. I started with only 4 students and I now have about 45 students who come very regularly and they learn much more than I’ve ever been able to teach students in the past. The business is growing very very quickly and I’m able to not only teach from my home and have students come to me, I have a space that I rent out as well and I have lots of students come and visit me there.

So for a new teacher, joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is massive. I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve tried to explain it to other people before. Sometimes they just don’t believe me, they don’t think it’s possible. You have to see it to experience it, and to experience it, you have to do the things that the course tells you to do. But when you do that, the things you have to do are actually really easy and it’s just getting off your backside doing them, and you will use it to make money, get a whole lot of students and have some awesome kickass students who you can really help to become cool guitar players.

It’s great being around the other people in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, because I can ask them for advice whenever I want. I’ve never been in a situation before where I can ask people who are earning 4, 5, 6 times the amount I am for advice on what I should do. And because they're not in the same location of me, they’re not competitors of mine, they can give me that advice, and they’re happy to do so. They're from all around the world and okay, they might not be able to give me the exact advice I want for my country, but they can tell me where to look. They can tell me who to speak to and they can give me great advice on how to grow my business loads of areas. It’s awesome.

Darryl Powis, London, England

"Tom Hess has helped me teach my own guitar students better in terms of how I approach teaching them, so when I first started in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle I had no experience teaching guitar. I was looking for some help on how to do that and was pleasantly surprised and happy to find the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle."

The different training methods that Tom Hess teaches you about are fantastic. And when you do apply those things to your students, you can see how much improvement they make versus your old ways of teaching.

Since joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, my guitar teaching business has improved dramatically. I started with absolutely nothing. Maybe like 4 students and then I quit my job and I started teaching on my own and I built that up to like maybe like 30 or 40 students and then I ended up hiring another teacher and this went on and I ended up opening a commercial space and now I think we teach around like 150 different students and some of them do multiple classes a week so that’s really cool. So my business has grown to a multi 6-figure level, which is insane because when I started, 6-figures was not even in my mind.

Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I worked for a pharmaceutical company, I was a scientist and had your typical 40-hour work week and commuting in traffic and I was never really happy cause I didn’t have my time. I always kind of felt like a slave to my job cause there was so many things that I wanted to do, even if it was just like sitting at home and reading a book, like that’s what I wanted to do with my time. So now that I run my own business and my business has grown so much, I love Tom Hess’s saying that "when do I wake up? When I’m done. And when do I go to bed? When I’m tired." So that’s my life now which is great, because it allows me to take time off whenever I want. Which I could never do before, because you were limited to however many vacation days you had. And instead of teaching 40 hours a week, or instead of working 40 hours a week, I now only teach about 7 or 8 hours a week, which is awesome because that leaves a lot of extra time to do the things that I want to. So life is a lot less stressful than it used to be. And I’m definitely a lot happier than I used to be too, so that’s good.

Joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle even if you are a beginner teacher is very helpful, because I myself had absolutely no experience teaching and I didn’t have a lot of experience with guitar in general cause I didn’t take a lot of lessons growing up, I was mostly self-taught, so I felt very self-conscious about even being able to teach, like it just felt like I wasn’t going to be able to do it. And the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle really gives you the confidence. The members that are on the forum are very motivating, very supportive. And we’ve all been there, we’ve all been to the point where like we started with zero students. But the biggest thing is to actually take the action to step forward, even if you're broke if you think you can’t afford it… it’ll pay for itself within the first month if you just do what you're told to do.

The forum is a vital part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. Everyone is so helpful and they really force you to think about the questions you're asking on a much deeper level. So especially in the beginning, you ask kind of like surface level questions and because you need the answers to those surface level questions. But people are always encouraging everyone to think a little bit deeper about the questions they are asking. And it’s great because there’s so much information on that forum now, I mean there’s a whole backlog of everyone’s conversations so it’s a treasure trove of tidbits and information like you know, how to make an effective lesson policy and opening your own commercial space and there’s just so much information on there. And everyone’s very supportive in answering your questions so it’s probably the best part of the program.

Lauren Bateman, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

"I like to be coached by Tom Hess most because he fucking delivers. He just gets results. Tom Hess just gets results. You know there’s a lot of guys online who offer all sorts of courses, but Tom Hess always delivers."

It's fucking amazing alright, to be in an environment where you have all of these super-successful guitar teachers and you're hanging out with each other, you’re sharing ideas, you're helping each other take each other’s business to the next level. It’s great... it really is.

What Tom Hess has done or helped me do is he’s showed me how do you not only teach a student… I mean that’s the easy part, you know, you get the information and you tell them alright, we'll learn these chords or this scale... and what makes Tom Hess’s methods different is that he actually shows you how to train and coach your students. Because eventually the only thing that matters is that your students do what you tell them to do right and then that takes training. And you don’t just want to show them stuff, you want to turn them into good guitar players, great guitar players, and Tom Hess gives you the tools to achieve these things. And you can really find that anywhere else on the internet. I mean, I’ve looked. There is nothing.

I wanted to become a better teacher. I started out like most teachers not knowing jack shit about what I was doing. I only had a few students. Didn’t know really how to get more. I didn’t know how to effectively help them. You know, just going at it by trial and error. So I started looking around and I found Tom Hess, joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and things just took off for my business.

Tom Hess - he’s the fucking best out there. He is the single greatest guitar teacher/coach on the surface of this planet. At least I haven’t found another one that is better. There’s some guys out there who can tell you, alright I can show you how to do this or I can show you how to do that, but they don’t even come close... it’s... it’s shooting fish in a barrel really.

I have improved in ways that basically I didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning and I learned to actually what I’m doing now. Like I said earlier, I’ve got the tools and skills needed to effectively teach guitar students and turn them into the guitar players they want to be and that’s great. And business-wise, I went from barely zero to 6-figures and there are not very many guitar teachers on the face of this planet that can say that they got to that level. So I have improved quite a bit.

So how the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is going to help you build your business and increase your skills as a teacher is that it’s going to give you the tools that you need to build an effective business that basically runs itself. And you're just going to completely murder the competition. Okay not literally of course. But you're going to fucking kick ass. None of your competitors are going to do this stuff.

Even if you don’t have much income, it’s more than worth it. If you’re only remotely serious about actually building an effective teaching business… I mean a successful one… If you really want to do this stuff right and you want to build a good business that’s going to work for you and your family and not worry about money, and you know, living from month to month, paycheck to paycheck... If you're done with that shit, then this is the program for you. And it’s not that expensive. So even if you just try it for a couple months, you're going to see it for yourself. Just do it.

Marc Scholtemeijer, Haarlem, Netherlands

“So there are many things that I’ve learned from Tom on the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle package that would’ve never been able to come up with on my own, or it would’ve taken me ages, and that are certainly not being done by any competitors in my local area, so I couldn’t have copied it from anyone else that I know either.”

So there’s a list of those things, the focus on group lessons has been really important, the ways you can structure group lessons, and the way that you can rotate people through them, I would’ve never thought of that on my own. Something that I could not have done without the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is have the faith and confidence that it’s actually possible to build a highly effective teaching business even when you’re surrounded by lots of other teachers who might even be better players in a very competitive market. Tom’s package showed me that if you do what he tells you, you can succeed.

My guitar teaching skills have definitely improved with Tom’s Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle...my life has changed in a big way from teaching people, because it’s massively rewarding. I really enjoy playing. And I enjoy music, and all that is great, but there is something really special about being able to share that experience with other people, and not just through playing or jamming with people, but through teaching people as well. And that’s not something that I was getting from either my music or my life in quite that way before, so it’s much more rewarding. And I’ve actually found quite a big piece of courage. It’s been a big example to myself that I can take something that I was you know passionate about but essentially clueless about before working with Tom’s teaching training. And I can move from zero to a very effective place very quickly with the right mentor and the right methods.

For me it’s really simple, the money that I invested into the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is money that I’ll get back from the teaching business by many times over… and not just money, there’ll be less stress, I’ll have more satisfied students… It’s not just purely the financial thing, it’s really, really valuable.

So for me it’s inspiring to be around the other teachers in the program because you can see the kind of success that they’re having, so that’s… there’s evidence that if you do the stuff in the program, it will work. So there’s not a problem… or there’s no fear, will this work or will it not work. Do the things that you get told to do and you will get a great result. It’s good to have a great network of people that you can share your challenges with as well.

Andy Hope, London, England, USA

“When I started the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I had zero teaching how to teach guitar… I had never taught guitar except a couple friends. My initial thinking was I mean, I don’t know, everything that I’ve learned in life, you can get by so much faster if you seek out someone that knows how to do it, and you can learn from them instead of trying to figure it out on your own.”

So, if someone’s thinking about should I join, should I not… totally. It’s great, I would highly recommend it to anyone.

The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle has helped me develop my own teaching skills as well as business skills. I mean, like I mentioned I hadn’t really had any real training before, I never really taught a lesson. I had taught lessons, but not serious like I’m going to do this for work. So it just helped me to get the most value to my students to help them see that I am the obvious choice. I mean, part of the reasons why I decided to get into teaching was because of all the teachers I had, 10 of them, besides Tom, I feel like none of them knew how to teach. Teaching is more than just showing chords and licks and things like that. I figured I can do it much better than the teachers around. But at the same time I knew that I had a lot to learn. So it’s been great, I’ve definitely bettered my own skills, and developed into a much better teacher.

The forums definitely helped. Just like anything, you’re going to have very specific questions to your very specific problems. So on the forum, it’s great because you can ask these questions and Tom can give his advice on it or another teacher that’s in the same situation can give his perspective, or a teacher that’s already been there and done that can give his perspectives, and so all the little tiny, minute details really helped to kind of piece things together and get feedback from people.

Preston Howard, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

"I had 4 students when I started out 7 years ago in my teaching business. It really improved rapidly. In the first year, I got to 100 students. 7 years later we have hundreds of students and 3 locations."

We have a team of 14 different teachers working for us and it’s just been the nicest thing ever cause I never have to work a day of my life. I can do pretty much anything that I want ... and I just love my job so the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle pretty much helped me developing that. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere near the level of success that I am riding on without the program.

When I first started teaching guitar, I was 22 years old and didn’t really knew what I was doing. So I was member of the Music Careers Mentoring Program with Tom Hess. And I figured if I want to have a music career, I might as well learn to coach students and create students… I was teaching anyway, I had 4 students at the time. So I had to find a way to really step up my game and I couldn’t really afford to not look into the program, so that made me realize that it’s like a one-time opportunity. I’ve been here in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle for 7 years now, and it’s been steady progress and the learning curve is excellent, the support and the people on the forum is worth the entire investment in the program, and I’m really content about the progress I’ve made so far.

I think Tom Hess is the number one in the area of teaching businesses as far as the whole online courses go. I’ve never really checked out other resources on this topic. I have read a couple of articles written by other guys, but if I guess if you don’t have built your own business to the point that you can be really successful at teaching, there’s no point at teaching others. And that’s what separates Tom Hess from all his competitors. He’s doing it. He has build a massive amount of presence on the internet. So I think that is what most people are drawn to. He doesn’t only talk about it, he does it. So that’s why for me, there’s like no one else that comes close in the area of coaching you on the teaching business.

My life really looks awesome right now, so couldn’t be any happier. Me and my fiancée just travel whenever we want, we do whatever we want, like that’s a big part of why I decided to join the program because I didn’t want to have shitty day job. And I just wanted to build my own lifestyle and we did ever since.

Antony Reynaert, Ostend, Belgium

“I’ve been a member of the Music Careers Mentoring Program and I knew that the advice that Tom gave on that was gold. So when he had a program specifically for teaching, I thought if I’m going to be teaching I’ve got to be in that program, because if I’m not, I’m not going to be the teacher that I could be.”

I mean the day I quit my day job and just started teaching and earning my income from teaching, that would’ve been it. And I know I wouldn’t have been doing that if it wasn’t for a couple of reasons, one of which was definitely being a member of the program. That gave me the know-how and the confidence to do it, and become a guitar teacher.

My guitar teaching skills have increased… it’s hard to say, I was barely teaching before I joined, so I’d have to say they’ve increased 100% since I joined the EGTIC. I’m earning money out of it now.

The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle will pay for itself. You’re going to get more students. You’re going to be able to teach those students better than you would’ve been able to before, so they’re going to stay with you longer. So it’s a no-brainer.

It’s incredibly inspiring being around the other teachers. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve not implemented even everything that the program offers and it’s changed my life. And some of these other guys… they’re making… they’ve got all these students… teaching them all these amazing things and changed their lives even more than it’s changed my life. Just being around these guys is incredibly inspiring. It kind of gives you a kick up the butt to do a little bit more.

James Krumbock, Winchester, England

“Tom has helped me teach my guitar students better by helping me improve my own mentality towards teaching. I taught for a long time before meeting Tom. I took it pretty seriously, but it was more of a hobby, not really for seriously making money. And now that it’s actually a business and Tom has taught me how to approach it as a business, I’ve become more serious about bringing real, really good value to my students and that has made me a much better teacher.”

My background is in music. I have a master’s degree in music, but all through my schooling nobody every taught me anything about business, nobody every taught me anything about how to succeed in business. So when I found Tom it was a completely different set of skills that he had to offer to me. And I was working a law firm at the time… really was not what I wanted to do and so having someone come along and say I can teach you how to actually make a business and live off that business doing what you love to do was all I needed to know. I got a 45-day trial and when I went… I got a few of the calls and they were fantastic. I mean there was a bunch of stuff in the calls that I never even thought of. So that was one thing that I knew that convinced me that the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was right for me.

One of things that has improved since joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle in terms of my teaching ability is being able to teach people not only in a on-on-one setting, but in other settings that are actually better than just the one-on-one format. These are things that I never even thought about before joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, but now that I have seen the light so to say, it has made me a much more effective teacher working in different formats.

It's massively motivating, because there are people who have multiple times the number of students that I have and they’re hugely successful and seeing that the things that I’m learning when they are implemented actually work, is very motivating for me to get down and do the work that it requires to be successful.
Specifically seeing someone who was making $20,000 a month was very inspiring, and that really kind of kicked my butt and got me inspired to really work on my business and do the things that Tom teaches us to do.

Nicholas Anderson, Olympia, Washington, USA

“I was already teaching guitar before I had even heard of Tom and when I saw the website for the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I immediately thought this is going to be the program for me, because I knew I wanted to teach guitar. And by joining that, it’s really helped move from working as a teacher for someone else and now teaching by myself, for myself.”

Seeing that it actually worked for other people, I think that was the biggest thing that convinced me to join. And the way Tom talks, whether it’s about guitar lessons if you’re a student, or the way he talks about how he teaches students, is really convincing, because I knew he knew what he was talking about and I knew he could help me because of that.

My guitar teaching skills have definitely improved. I found now I’m not worrying about content. That was something that was a real concern, even when I first started in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I thought oh I’ve got to have all this stuff ready for the students. Now I feel really confident that I know exactly what I give each single week for each student. And it’s a lot easier to implement and there’s less stress before each lesson.

Now, I’m working for myself teaching guitar, and that is my sole source of income. Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I was working probably about 30 hours a week working for someone else doing teaching stuff, and I wasn’t making as much money doing more hours… so that’s completely changed how much free time I have, and how much money I’ve got in the bank.
There’s a lot of people on the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum, who when they joined never taught a guitar lesson in their life, and those people are now working full time as guitar teachers, and the calls that we get from Tom are extremely helpful in getting you the right mindset, and just getting you the first steps which can be really the scariest part of deciding to become a guitar teacher, plus you’ve got the support of all these other members on the forum who are really going to help you out. If you’ve got a question there are so many professional guitar teachers on there that you’ll get so much feedback, you’ll be able to implement something straight away.

Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia

“The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle has really taken me from… really it took me from zero. I started out teaching in my parent’s basement when I was still living with them. And I’ve taught, you know after I got married in our first apartment, moved in with my in-laws for a little bit, taught at their house, and two other houses that we’ve lived in. And now we’ve moved our business downtown and it’s exploded. We started hiring teachers and beginning a music school. We’re now on our second location for that, because we grew out of our first location. So it’s taken me from a basement to having our own big building with 8 teaching rooms and all sorts of awesome stuff going on and 5 or 6 teachers working for us. So literally from zero to over a hundred students. I’ve been a member of the Music Careers Mentoring Program and I knew that the advice that Tom gave on that was gold. So when he had a program specifically for teaching, I thought if I’m going to be teaching I’ve got to be in that program, because if I’m not, I’m not going to be the teacher that I could be.”

I’ve talked to other teachers before and they really don’t understand business. Even other business owners that I know, there’s a lot that they’re missing out on. So the business help that we get in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, not just for music teachers is awesome to run a music school… but it’s the kind of business help that applies to anything and it makes it really really valuable because a lot of people pay a lot more money than you pay for the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle to gain that kind of information and then to go through the trial and error of making it work… when in EGTIC, Tom’s already gone through that.

If you’re thinking about doing the EGTIC but you feel like it costs too much, then you really need to think about the potential money that you’re losing by not doing it.

That’s the big thing, because when I first started I was like, oh that’s a big investment, but the thing is you make that money back really quick and you make it back ten, twenty-fold.

Brad Litton, Vernal, Utah

"Tom Hess has completely changed my whole life. Everything I’ve been doing, it has changed dramatically in a very, very positive direction by the strategy and suggestions he have advised me to my situation. And I have an ass-kicking awesome life right now."

Since being a member of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I’ve gone from zero business experience, zero teaching experience to having a 6-figure business and giving massive results for my students by continuously implementing the advice from Tom Hess, from over 20 years of business and teaching experience that I can tailor-fit to my situation how I really want it and then… boom, it’s just grown massively since I started.

Now since I’ve started the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I wake up, I go down to my own music school and basically run my own life as my own leader and also the leader of my assistant. I have a lot more freedom if I want to go take a vacation, if I want to take a day off, I can choose to do the things like in my business. I have things set up so I have a lot more freedom to do the things I want to do.

Teachers that are not part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program right now... they cannot afford not to invest in the program. They are losing an enormous potential of money. And also, they are also in danger, because in this program there are so many strong people from all over the world that it’s constantly growing… that if they don’t get in the program, they will also lose the protection, and they can be run over like a deer by a train. Just for their own security that would be a very wise thing to do because it’s so strong, the things we are learning, that the competition should be very, very afraid if one of our members would come to your town.

That’s one thing. The other thing is that which other teachers do you know that are earning 6-figrues or more teaching guitar? Probably none. Here, we are many. Right. So I never heard about any other community or mentor that makes that types of result. I would immediately join the program. We have a lot of fun. We have a forum and community where we can support each other through thick and thin. I know some people think oh it’s a scam or whatever… people have doubts and very often, they just have doubts about themselves. Because they say who am I to do this, can I really do this? Because Tom Hess sets strong expectations in his marketing, he’s very strong in his marketing. I know that he really, really wants you to go out there, because he knows that when you get committed to the process, he got your back. He got your back. And he will always want to over deliver, so if you join the program and you just do the steps that have been laid out there, you will be successful. So if you wait, you're just losing money by waiting. And you will quickly get the money back that it takes to get in the program. It’s like peanuts, it’s like nothing compared to what you get out of it.

Magnus Gautestad, Kristiansand, Norway

"I like the fact that Tom Hess is pretty direct. He delivers massive value on every level. Everything I’ve received from him has been way above and beyond what I expected. Tom Hess has always come across as someone immense integrity."

I’ve really benefited from the individual calls I’ve had with him. The amount of time he spends on the forum offering advice to people including myself. I’ve found him very approachable.

It’s also made it a lot more fun for me, I mean previously I was getting a bit burnt out with the whole teaching thing and being part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and learning all this stuff has completely reinvigorated my enjoyment of teaching. I absolutely love it now, whereas a few years ago I would’ve quite easily packed it in. So that was a big thing for me and I’m just so happy about that.

What made me seek out help was I moved countries so I was originally in the UK, I arrived in New Zealand and had nothing and started teaching for a local music school and a local high school. And it was terrible. I realized I just needed to do something to kick start things much more effectively. I was looking for guitar teacher positions at the time and stumbled across Tom Hess talking about the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and it sounded great. So I checked it out and signed up basically.

There were a couple things in the beginning that convinced me that the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was the right thing. I got in touch with a former student who gave a glowing recommendation. The testimonials from previous students including this student that I got in touch with blew me away.

When I started my guitar teaching business in Auckland, I had a few private students pay me cash. I was teaching out of a spare room at my house. The lessons were dotted throughout the day. I just kind of decided you know, whenever people wanted a lesson they could have… if they didn’t turn up, I didn’t earn any money. I’m now teaching in a purpose-built teaching studio with groups of people. I know they're going to turn up. I know from a financial point of view, that I’ve got security. I have a much higher quality of students now because I’ve learned how to weed out the people that I don’t want or need to teach. As I said before, I just enjoy the whole thing so much better. I just love going to do the teaching and to work on the business and it’s all great fun, which it never was before.

When I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, the monthly payments initially, my wife and I were a little bit concerned about it and we thought, okay we’ll give it a go for a month or two and see how it happens. I mean, I would say within the first week or two I was utterly convinced that it was well worth every penny. And it really didn’t take long at all until that monthly payment didn’t even register, I mean I was able to build my business up so much quicker. And you know certainly now, I don’t even notice.

The people who are part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum are not like any other music teachers I’ve ever met. And I used to work in schools and met lots of different music teachers and colleges. They all share the same goals, and the same philosophies as me. They're all trying to do the best for themselves and the best for their students and that is hugely inspiring. Just the fact that there are people who want to get the best out of everything really. It’s also incredibly inspiring how freely some of these people give advice as well, you know, especially the really high earners, you know just to see what they're giving back to the forum is fantastic and inspiring in a sense that I want to get to the point where I’ve got the time to do that as well for the other people who are coming up. It really shows you what’s possible and how you can engineer your life and your time to allow you to do that kind of thing for other people as well.

Dylan Kay, Auckland, New Zealand

"Tom Hess has helped me teach my own guitar students better in a tons of ways."

The main ways I can think of are, number one that: private one on one lessons are not the way you should teach the vast majority of people. And this was quite a culture shock to me when I first came into the program. And I had been teaching a little but just private one on one lessons out of my house basically. And I’d always said, oh that’s just what you do. You know, somebody comes for an hour, sits in front of you and that’s it. But being part of Tom Hess’s program will show you that that’s just the worst way to teach the vast majority of people. And that was one of the biggest changes that I’m really grateful for. The results for my students are just vastly superior than just sitting in front of you in a room for like an hour every week.

Another way that Tom Hess has helped me teach my guitar students is really enforcing that you don’t have to teach people tons and tons of stuff. You don’t really have to overload them with information every week. You just got to take the things that they already know and help them get the better result with it. And get them really enthusiastic about that. And the more you do that, the more you get them to do what you want them to do, then they're going to become much better guitar players than I could’ve ever possibly have hoped for if I didn’t discover the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle or the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International.

What convinced me in the beginning that the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was right for me was the way the information as presented. Just like Tom Hess’s other products, it was in a very straightforward, step-by-step way. If you do this, this, and this, you know, it’ll work for you. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, what culture you're a part of, the systems work.

My life now looks way better than before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. The fact that I’m sitting here in America. I’ve been here for two weeks at two really kickass events to benefit my own teaching and my own playing is fantastic. I was able to phase out a day job that I hated to teach guitar full time. And I know I earn more money than I ever have in my life before.

The forums help me get more out of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle’s sessions, because the various members will report back the results of what they’ve implemented. And they’ll also make posts, you know, just about questions before they go and implement something just to get the other teachers' feedback who have probably already implemented it or are in the process of doing it so… Again, it’s making it all the more tangible when you can see that these guys, wherever they are in the world, they're doing this. You know, you’ll get feedback that it’s working for them. And that adds immense value because it just makes it a little more real. It doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter who you are. You don’t have to be a world-class player. It’s all about using the information and just implementing it.

Michael Hanna, Larne, United Kingdom

“When I started the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I started with nothing. I had no students, I had nothing, so I didn’t know where to begin. But Tom has laid out very clear strategies for me to follow, both business and teaching.”

Teaching comes from experience I believe, and now that I have got some experience, I feel I have progressed of course. But with Tom’s help, I’ve stayed clear of many trials and errors, so it’s been a huge benefit.

Tom has helped me to get a more clear picture of what is needed to grow a guitar business in an effective and in a fast way. So it’s that and you know how to structure your students, how to organize them in bigger groups and so forth and it’s been really helpful.

Gottfrid Norberg Waxin, Sweden

“Some of the most important things that I’ve learned from the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program is actually motivating my students. Being able to get them to do what I’m trying to teach them and train them to do is something I really struggled with in the past.”

You know, when we approach the teaching of especially a lot of students, they’re learning the instrument voluntarily. There’s an old saying, it’s hard to push a rope. But learning to use effective and constructive methods of actually motivating the students has been such a great thing within my business, it’s really helped me to grow with what I’m doing. In addition to that, many of the business approaches, things like policies within my school, payment policy, make up lesson policies, the formats that I actually run my lessons in… not only has it helped me to provide more for my students, that it actually even eases up the number of hours that I have to teach on a weekly basis.

One of the main reasons that I sought Tom’s help with the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program was that I had a school and I had a number of students, but it was falling apart. I noticed the lack of motivation in my students, they weren’t actually practicing, they weren’t working on things, and of course when the students got bored, they would leave… and I knew that it was just a matter of time before I would be out of business. And that’s where Tom really made a difference because he showed me how to actually make my business work.

So the main reason I chose to work with Tom is not only has he proven that he was able to achieve results with other people, other business owners and teachers, very much like myself… but he had actually done the same thing himself. He was a teacher, he had started from basically nothing and had found the tools and means to establish a very very large business, very effective working business. And in addition to that again, his passion for teaching, and his passion for building businesses really stood out to me.

The thing that really made it clear to me that I had made the right decision was Tom’s intensity. Again, I think about that intensity, not in a bad way, but again, another way I think about it is it’s his passion. He really cares deeply for the people he’s working with. He works very hard to ensure that the information that I am getting, that we get through the program, is going to work, and it’s going to work very very very well.

I’ve more than doubled the size of my school, and definitely more than double my income. And not only that, I’m actually teaching less than when I originally started, I mean based on the changes in formats, and the policies that I run with my school, the security form my business from an administrative standpoint is better than ever… I don’t have to worry about chasing clients anymore… its’ great. The stress is as low as it’s ever been.

You definitely want to invest in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program and the main reason is because you don’t have to worry about trial and error anymore. You don’t have to try something and see if it’s going to work. You’re going to know that the methods, the strategies that Tom gives you will work. Your business is going to grow, things are going to get easier, the stress is going to go down… life gets great.

The thing I like about the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is that it’s not really just one approach this is it this is what you have to do and that’s it… it’s very open. The strategies can be applied to a number of situations based on what I want, or what somebody else might want their business to actually be. It gives us the opportunity on the forum to see what some people have… what direction they’ve gone in… what for them has worked for those situations and what if they made mistakes they can warn other people about those kind of things. It’s also good to get feedback about projects that I might be working on, so if I’m running an advertisement campaign, or I create a promotional video… I can post a link or I can put the video right up and I can get within a matter of hours some very good feedback on whether the video is going to work or whether there’s problems… and that can save me a lot of time and especially a lot of money with the advertising and work that I do. These people, the people on the forum, they have experience they’ve been working with Tom, they’ve been working on their own to build up the business… and they’re also very supportive because when one person succeeds with this it means they are going to be able to provide more back and help everybody else to get even better.

Graehme Floyd, London, Ontario, Canada

“I like that the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle just puts teaching guitar on a whole new level.”

I think that people who aren’t musicians, they think of teaching guitar as not a very lucrative job. Whereas the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle gives you all the tools you need to become an entrepreneur and create your own business and get it to thrive by understanding business better, understanding sales, understanding marketing, and getting more out of students, and basically you’re creating more value to your students. Once you start creating more value, you’re earning more money, and he gives you so much advice on those topics.

I think the best use of your money when you’re starting a guitar teaching business is to invest in yourself, and invest in knowledge and training and become a better teacher, become a better business person and for music business, and specifically guitar teaching business, I don’t know anyone better than Tom Hess. So, it’s very specific training for guitar teachers, it’s not like a general business course, it’s very targeted towards guitar teachers. So, that to me is really cool, because as far as I know there’s nothing else out there like that. So I think there’s not a lot of expenses, overheads when you start a guitar teaching business… I mean you don’t have to buy expensive equipment or anything, you can just get going. So the money you are making you might as well invest it back into your business and back into yourself and the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is a great way to keep improving as a teacher.

The program covers a lot of business skills, like one of them would be marketing, and we cover online and offline marketing. Creating your website and getting your website in a really good position on Google… things like that so that you stand out online and people can find you, so you can attract students by saying the right things, you know, having good headlines, having good copyright, good…. Also sales, the things you say to people on the phone, the things that you say to people when they’re in the room with you and they’re not sure whether you’re the right teacher… you know what to say, and you know how to add value and persuade that you’re the person for them and deliver on that as well.

The program also covers guitar teaching skills comprehensively, it helps me learn how to focus on training, which is a real important part of a student’s development. That’s something I wasn’t doing before I started working with Tom. Training really enables you to help students apply what they know and practice it correctly so that they’re developing good habits. That’s such an important part of teaching. A lot of guitar teachers, typical guitar teachers tend to neglect teaching their students properly, and that’s why some of their students won’t progress as quickly as they could, so that’s definitely an important skill. Also teaching in groups, we get to learn the best ways to teach groups, and how to create more value in groups than private lessons, and the students love it and get motivated and they have fun, and usually they stay with you for a long time because they enjoy that group environment. And we get to understand the strategies for teaching group classes and getting good results for students and leveraging our time and money by teaching groups.

I think that meeting Tom and starting all these programs with Tom… it’s been life-changing.

Chris Ball, Melbourne, Australia

“I stumbled upon Tom’s website about 2 years ago and I was very skeptical, because I’m naturally a very skeptical person… I then started implementing some strategies that I had learned in the program and I hadn’t even been in the program a month and I had a massive increase of over 20 students.”

I really wish I could go back in time and I wish I could have joined 2 years ago because it would save me some hardship, I would have been even more successful sooner, but I can’t stress enough to give the program a try.

Bryan Briggs, Ottawa, Canada

“Tom helped me a lot to teach my own students better in different ways. He taught me new, innovative, teaching models and also details of how to train them, some methods I did not know before… which works fine and helps my students to become better.”

In the beginning, before starting the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, it was at a time I relocated and I had a hard time to get enough students. I was already teaching for some years, and it worked ok, but then I was in a new city and it seemed a bit harder, more competition or something. So I struggled, then I found the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and I just thought maybe I should try this. I didn’t know that it was so massive, and so much good stuff there, I just thought try it a little bit, may bring me some students and then it’s fine. And yeah of course, it brought this, but it was much more. Much more than I expected. So I’m still there and growing and getting better.

Lutz Richter, Potsdam, Germany

“Tom’s really helped me teaching guitar with a realization that it is possible to make 6-figures a year and you don’t have to struggle to get students and retain them. They’re out there and he shows you the way to keep them and have them coming back wanting more.”

Tom teaches you things about teaching guitar that no one else does. I don’t think there’s any other program out there where you have a mentor and a coach teaching you how to teach your students or even to build a business, so that was really great. Everything about it is really awesome. I’m thankful that I have Tom there to help me out.

My teaching skills have improved, my marketing, and advertising, learning how to make flyers, build a website, make it really professional and yeah, how to attract a lot of students and keep those students around a long time.

You should invest into the program, because you can’t really afford not to invest, because you’re losing money by not getting these students and attracting them. And the program really helps to do that really quick if you implement everything.
Being a part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle community is very inspiring. You see other people that are successful and you want to become those people. Those people are here to help you, to show you the way, exactly what they did. I’m a firm believer that I can too have the success that they’ve achieved.

Brad Ananian, Visalia, California, USA

“I wanted to teach and I knew that the way that Tom teaches is different. It’s like another level from any other teacher I knew where I live.”

I don’t know many other teachers around the world. Where I live, I was sure that I could get the best way to be able start my activity, which now is going pretty well. Before that, I was stuck in my job. I wasn’t able to be a professional musician, to be 100% focused on music. Now my life is changing.

It’s absolutely amazing, I mean, I know a lot of stories because in the problem you can relate to other ones experiences, all over the world. And you understand there is a common point you can overcome. And these people is also helping you a lot because they already overcome this problem maybe. And we sustain each other, this is really awesome, because we are all offline teachers, and so I’m in Switzerland, the other guy is in Australia and they can support you, you can support them, so this makes this program really awesome, and you feel all this better about what you are doing, and if you have problem coming up, there is always someone that has solved the problem greatly and this is really encouraging and inspiring for me.

Massimo Canonaco, Locarno, Switzerland

“My guitar teaching skills and overall business skills from the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle have improved 100%. And that was all thanks to Tom.”

I think that’s the coolest thing is how my life outside of guitar teaching and guitar playing has improved because of Tom and because of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. Opened up my eyes to different philosophies and books like Napoleon Hill’s Think And Grow Rich. And the overall quality of my life, besides the business side and the playing side… it’s unbelievable… it’s astonishing… again if I had to quantify it in a percentage… 100% improvement. If you charge $100 a month for a half hour a week lesson or whatever… say you do that… if you get two students from this program… you’ve now… now you’ve paid for the program, but now you are making an extra $50 that was not there before… and you’re going to get a lot more students from the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle than just two. So it may seem on the surface as a risk, but it’s a risk worth taking, and I would highly recommend it to anybody… not just guitar teachers but any vocal teachers, bass teachers, drum teachers… it’s a program that you can get a lot out of.

It is extremely inspiring to be around other guitar teachers in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. Because I strive to be the best in my area, and to see guys that make 6-figures teaching guitar. That’s what I want to get to, and I know it’s attainable because they’ve done it. If they can do it, I can do it too… and inspiring just awesome. It’s just an awesome thing to be around.

The forum for the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is probably like the hidden gem of it all, because you have so many people going through the exact same problems, exact same issues whether it be how to design your website, how to design a flyer, you know… how to implement a specific thing that Tom talks about in a session. Having access to this mastermind group of people who are either super successful and can show you the path or as successful as those people, but have been in your shoes at some point in time and can be able to say I did that and that didn’t work… so you should try X, Y and Z, and maybe that will help you. You can’t get that anywhere. It’s astounding. Really it’s astounding, just every time I think about it I just laugh… it’s like, why would anybody ever want to do this on their own? It wouldn’t make sense.

Jon Chorba, Dallas, Texas, USA

"When I started teaching on my own, I was doing just what everybody else was doing. I was mostly teaching one on one lessons. One of the first things I got from the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was the strategies and tactics on how to actually teach other ways that are way more effective than only teaching one on one."

You can really scale up your business. You can get more students than you previously even thought was possible, so this is one of the biggest things, plus, you are able to teach them effectively, not to only gather them in the room, but actually give them awesome content and great results that they are looking for.

Since I’ve started working with Tom Hess in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I start developing these different models of teaching. Instead of only teaching one on one lessons, I started developing different group models which are way better than teaching one on one lessons. And in these kinds of models basically, I’ve learned a lot about how you can teach multiple students at the same time, how you can give value to them, how you can learn to interact with multiple students, and how they can learn to interact among each other. I think one of the biggest benefits of this is students can play with each other, students can see how they progress, they’re in a group with like-minded people they see like every week when they come for a lesson, they see how each of them progressed over the week and it usually motivates them to work harder and be a better guitar player in less time.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed since I’m in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program is that my students just got better way quicker, they got results.

Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I was pretty much a struggling musician. I had to take gigs that I didn’t want to play in order to survive. My business had 10 students, so I really couldn’t afford to only teach. But since I started Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I gained 60 new students. My business grew exponentially. And I actually don’t need to take anything in my life that I don’t want to do. And it gives me stability and it gives me a lot of freedom and time to do things that I also enjoy doing in life.

You need to get involved with Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, because if you're starting from zero, you better build your business the way it’s supposed to be built, and this is exactly what you will get here. I don’t think there is any place in world except this Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program where you can get every information for marketing, sales, teaching models, how to teach, how to behave… everything in one program and on one forum with guys that made it… and girls. It’s a great community, inspiring and motivating, and you can’t go wrong with it.

One of the most important things for every businessman and guitar player is to be surrounded by like-minded and successful people and this is exactly what the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle does for you. You’re surrounded by people who want success, who want the best for their students and who can provide it. And therefore, they’re successful. There are multiple 6-figures earners...I don’t think there’s anything better than being able to see with your own eyes like almost monthly on the forum how people get to 6-figures, how people reach their goals and their dreams, and how people kind of enrich their lives and make it better. It’s really empowering to see that, and to be a part of this.

Jure Golobic, Ljubljana, Slovenia

“I started from not knowing how to teach at all and now I’m getting better at it, I’m pretty successful. Tom has taught me a lot about the psychology of teaching and being able to help others learn, or being able to learn in different methods, different ways.”

I chose to start teaching because I wanted to make a living as a musician, and that seemed like the best step to do that, and I’m actually doing it now. It’s been awesome.

Since joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I’ve gone from 0 to 60 students. I couldn’t teach anybody how to play guitar before, and now I’m teaching people from age 6 to literally 90 to play.

The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle has helped my guitar teaching business in that I was able to quit a 20-year engineering career, and actually go full time as a teacher. So it’s been amazing. Before the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I was working anywhere from 40 to maybe 80 hours a week. Now, I’m working maybe 20. And the rest of that time I’m investing into my music career, my family, just a happier life.

A new guitar teacher or existing guitar teacher should invest in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, because it puts you head and shoulders above any of your competition, and you get to invest that into the people you’re teaching. Personally I want to pass on the gift of music to others and anybody who’s wanting to teach, this is a great way to do that.

The people that you encounter on the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum that have achieved 6-figures or beyond, it’s a huge inspiration. On those down days when you’re pushing through and you’re trying to reach that next step, you can always go to the forum and get that pick up.

Ty Morgan, Phoenix, Arizona

"Before joining the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle with Tom Hess, I had zero students. I hadn’t started at all. And after implementing just a few of the things that Tom Hess teaches us in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I got multiple students and it was in a format that also allowed my time to be used to continue to work on my business."

Because before I was part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I was setting up a business that was going to just be run like any other guitar teacher's and hope to get only 2 or 3 students a month and all private lessons by themselves. But now, even in only one month of teaching I make over 1,000 dollars a month with group formats and rock-solid lesson policies that I never would’ve thought of if it weren’t for the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle.

I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to teach guitar. I was tired of my day job. I was tired of selling my time instead of selling results. And I knew that I wanted to work for myself. I hadn’t decided what I was going to do yet. And then I saw something written by Tom Hess about teaching guitar, and I investigated further and saw the results that all of his clients have gotten and seen that it’s rock-solid, it’s real, it actually happens, it’s possible and I knew right then that I was going to join and I was going to do it.

The fact that I saw results from other people is definitely one of the main factors that I decided to be coached by Tom Hess in his Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, but not only the fact that I saw other people getting results, it was the way that Tom Hess spoke, even in his free materials, it made everything sound so clear and so easy, with concepts that made sense, but I just never thought of on my own.

Both my teaching skills and my business skills have grown quite a bit since joining Tom Hess’s Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. He gives easy to follow pointers on both sides and separates them very well while at the same time showing how they work together and that has helped tremendously for me to put together my business.

Being in the environment of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, being part of the forum, seeing the other guitar teachers who are succeeding, the ones who are making progress, the ones who are overcoming difficulties... that is the most motivating thing about the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle to me, is being able to see other people who are having real problems and crushing them.

Chris Hirsch, Ruston, Louisiana, USA

"When I started teaching guitar, I realized quite quickly that I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was piecing it together based on how I’d been taught in the past. Some elements of that were okay, but I was pretty clear from not very long into it, there was a lot missing… a lot of students weren’t really getting great results, despite me thinking I was doing a great job."

I wanted to be the best teacher that I can possibly be. And it made sense to me that to do that, I should seek out teacher training. I didn’t do music in college or anything like that so you know, I was looking online for that type of thing. When I found Tom Hess’s page, what he was saying was very convincing, it spoke to me. And yeah, I was pretty convinced and as soon as I signed up, I knew that I had made the right decision.

My guitar teaching skills have changed tremendously. My guitar teaching business is much, much bigger than what it was before the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. I have about 80 students in my school. And these students are getting real results. They're getting great value for money. They’re getting experiences at my school that they could not get anywhere else in my city or possibly even my whole country. Life-changing experiences they're having.

It’s a huge inspiration to be around the other teachers in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. It’s a huge reason why I’ve been able to do what I’ve done so far. And the support level is incredible. It's a space where you can have a question about anything to do with teaching, put it up there and it’s not just any old guy that’s getting back to you, you know it’s people that really know what they're talking about and there’s a warmth and generosity of spirit on the forum. A real sense of sharing and, and community and that’s huge for me.

Christy Bannerman, Glasgow, Scotland

“Working with Tom in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, learning about teaching guitar has definitely helped a lot, because on my own I feel like it would be a lot of trial and error to learn as much as what I can learn from him really fast. He covers everything that’s important, he’s really good at it.”

It helps me more than anything to know how to relate to students and how to interact with them, and guide them in the path of playing that is not the typical path, something that is better and helps people get good results.

My teaching business has improved tremendously since beginning the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. I won’t go into numbers or anything but, things are going good. So being in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle has definitely had an effect on my life in a positive way. Being on the forum is awesome, knowing all these amazing guitar teachers from all over the world that I can interact with all the time. It helps things a lot because you don’t have to just sit there and wonder or do the trial and error guessing approach… and it helps you to see bigger what you can do and what your options are, depending on what you even want to do, and even knowing those options is great. And it helps you definitely plan towards whatever goals you have whether they’re big or small… That’s one of the best things about the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle.

Ryan Duke, Seattle, Washington, USA

“I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle way before I even had the capacity to start teaching. Every day I would listen on the way to work, I would listen to sessions, I would listen to other students, other teachers, you know… starting at zero, then working their way up to maybe 10 students, then suddenly they’re at 30 students and I’m like, man this is real… and this could be me. Nobody is anything special and tons of people are doing it… I can do it too.”

It really got to a point where I had so much frustration that I was still at my current job and I didn’t do it… you know, I’d go on the forum, I’d see all these people making huge breakthroughs and stuff… and I was like, I have to do this, and if I don’t do this now, when I’m like 40 I’m going to kick myself for not even trying. That’s basically it, it was really motivating to see those guys.

Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I saw no future of music in my life, which is very depressing to me, because I know if I could do anything and really be passionate about it and be full on into it, it would be music. Anything else would just pale in comparison. It was really frustrating… And now, my life has totally changed because of Tom. And I would like to thank him personally for the opportunity. It’s changed my life in so many ways. My wife, she lives in a different state from me in Malaysia. Like 2 and a half hours from me. Her weekends are different from the weekends in my state. If I was in my regular job, we would have half a day a week together. Because I’m teaching and have flexibility, I can spend half a week with her. Apart from that, I was working, if I include commute time, I was working 11 hours a day, 5 days a week, and at one point I was even working 7 days a week doing 3 different jobs. The amount that I was earning then, I am almost earning as much now just by teaching less than 4 days a week.

Vishaal Kapoor, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

"I sought help to build my guitar teaching business because I just started to become a guitar teacher. I had no idea what I was doing. You know I wanted to get students, I wanted to be able to make a living but I was just as clueless as the next guy. So I already was a correspondence student with Tom Hess and realized that he has the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, and once I read about it and saw the success that other members were already having, it was a no-brainer for me. I signed up immediately."

I couldn’t teach guitar before at all. I don’t think many people can just naturally start teaching the guitar. They think they can but there was so many things I didn’t realize that I was doing wrong or could’ve done more efficiently. So yeah with the EGTIC I was able to not just realize how I’m going to build my business and get more students... but how I’m actually going turn them into total badasses.

My life is massively different... and better, much, much better than it’s ever been before thanks to the EGTIC. I make a lot more money than I ever have. I have a much better lifestyle. I have a nicer house. I have more money in the bank. More time off. I’m able to fly half way around the world for a couple of weeks every year if I want to and hang out with great musicians...

So I’m one of those guys who can listen to the calls from the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and go yeah I got that, and I understand that intellectually it’s all good, but then it’s a matter of implementation. So I find that with the forum if I’m either asking questions or reading or reading the posts or commenting on someone else’s thing, it helps reinforce the stuff that I already got. So that pushes me a lot further you know, it’s a little bit more than just being able to listen to a phone call once and go yeah that’s cool.

Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia

"Tom Hess has helped me teach my own guitar students better via a lot of new ideas that I never had before."

Music teaching is a bit of a lonely sport in some ways, and you're a leader in a big school and there’s sort of no one to connect with in lots of ways. You know, you connect with your teachers from your school. I might know the odd teacher around the country, but there’s no one who’s really kicking you and pushing you and giving you new ideas. That’s what Tom Hess does. And it’s all these new ideas that benefit me and the students. Cause since I’ve been with Tom Hess, I’ve created all these new programs. I’ve shifted into commercial premises, which mean that I can run more group classes and jam sessions and things like that, which I never could before.

I came across Tom Hess when I was searching for some information when I was studying at a local university. And a page on Tom Hess’s website came up with the information that I wanted. And from there I clicked on a few links and I read Tom Hess’s sales page about the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. For a start, it sounded too good to be true. And then I read a bit more… I read a bit more and I couldn’t believe that there was a guy… someone else in the world that actually thought like I did. I thought that was a bit uncanny as well. It still sounded too good to be true, but I signed up for Tom Hess’s free book that he was giving away and I’ve been with him ever since. It’s been quite a few years now, and best decision I ever made.

The forum alone is absolute gold really, and the people that were on the forum were just hard to describe. They were so helpful and full of great ideas. So it’s not really just about Tom Hess, it’s about a whole community and program that everyone’s helping each other. I’ve never seen anything like it in the world.

Since I started with the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, my business has nearly tripled. That’s quite a big movement actually. I was already doing okay before I started, but I still had high hopes that we could go bigger and better.

My life now is a lot easier than what it was before I joined the program. Because before I joined the program, I was doing everything myself. I was working 40 -50 hours a week. I was absolutely mentally drained, physically drained. I was absolutely a nutcase by the end of the week. Now I got other teachers working for me. We’ve got people coming in after school and helping out. We’ve got a teacher training program working, and I can actually cut back a bit and start working on the business more. What that will do, is that will create more opportunities for people coming through so we all rise. Everyone rises. Everyone gets an opportunity. That’s how it changed my life. By changing my life, it’s changed everyone around me's life as well.

My advice to any new guitar teacher, or even a guy that’s got 20- 30 guitar students would be: you need to get into some sort of community program that’s actually going to give you a kick along. You know, light a fire under you, because when you're working by yourself it’s very difficult to keep motivated. Even the best people find it hard to keep motivated. I was pretty self-motivated, but I’m more even on fire now. And the thing is when I first started this program, I was actually doing reasonably well, but I’m doing a lot better now. And it’s just that whole synergy thing of everyone being together. And you’ll never get it working by yourself. You’ll never get it. And this is just the best program ever to be in.

Kevin Downing, Palmerston North, New Zealand

"Tom Hess has helped me learn how to get more results for my students through hands-on training, through lots of great observation as well as showing me things that maybe I hadn’t thought of as a teacher and as a player. So the value that I get as a teacher and a player just magnifies the results I get for my students."

I had just moved home from college and had a mountain of student loan debt and no income. And I was teaching guitar at the time in the city of my college, but I lived 70 miles south of that so consequently I lost all my students at the time. So I was looking for the best way to get new students which is where I stumbled across the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle. And I remember getting the first 2 calls and being so on fire from listening to them, waking up at 3 o’clock in the morning, grabbing my notebook and just feverishly writing. And my girlfriend at the time, now my wife was like… what the hell are you doing? I’m like I can’t stop thinking, I gotta make this happen... I gotta make this happen. And the value that I got from it right then, I knew that if I just applied the principles and implemented all the marketing concepts which I had never thought about on my own, as well as the teaching principles themselves, I knew I was going to magnify my results. So, I found it kind of out of desperation. I needed to get this thing going. I knew I didn’t want to do anything but music, and this was by far the best thing I had ever seen on the guitar teaching topic. So for me, I knew it was the way out that I was looking for and it’s totally changed my life.

When I first started the program, I had zero students, no income and had just moved back to my mom’s house with a mountain load of student debt. I now am making just under 6-figures. I’m going to be there so soon, and I have a house, and I have a lot less debt, and I teach part-time, and I’m on my way to building a money-making machine that’s going to pump out killer guitar players over and over and over again. Again while giving me the lifestyle that I’m looking for.

There are many reasons why a beginning guitar teacher even with little income should get into this program. The first thing is, it’s going to inspire you to become a better version of yourself, and just with that first step, you can get more results. After that, it’s going to teach you how to attract the right kind of students, get them the best results, and then make sure they stay with you for a long period of time. Now it doesn’t matter if you're not a great guitar player, because the principles and methods that you learn allow you to train your students even if they're better guitar players than you. So, if you're insecure about your guitar playing, it doesn’t make a teacher. We all know great guitar players that are terrible teachers.

So for a beginning guitar teacher with no income, this investment is going to allow you to get more students faster, keep them longer, and get them better results so you get more students, etc. etc. It just builds from there.

Before joining the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle, I never participated in a forum cause I just thought they were all stupid. So that fact that I have been in this program for so long and actively participating in it, I say that says something, because none of the other forums kept my interest long enough to ever participate… this one… I’m on it every day. Multiple times a day. It’s my Facebook.

Josh Beetler, Taunton, Massachusetts, USA

"I first sought out help to develop my guitar teaching business, because I’ve been working for about 8 years in a teaching business that I’d set up. And I’d grown it to some level and I was working with a couple of other people, but it was hard to see how it was really going to continue expanding, it was an awful lot of work, it was a lot of admin, I wasn’t really getting that much satisfaction from it and I had sort of stopped believing in it."

Tom Hess is the first person I encountered who had something specifically for guitar teaching business owners. So I had done a little bit of marketing and business study with other people and they had programs that were for coaches of different kinds to be in a kind of mastermind group and to get that kind of support. But it was for all kinds of coaches, there might be sports people, dieticians, nutritionists and I never really felt like that was specific enough. So when I found one that was especially for guitar teachers, it was like amazing, this is exactly what I need.

My skills as a guitar teacher have definitely increased massively since I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. I think in the preceding 10 years when I’ve been doing various different kinds of teaching delivery in guitar and songwriting and singing, I think I’ve relied a lot on my personality and just jollying students along, hoping they’d enjoy the time they spend with me… It did work up to a point I think. But it wasn’t really very strategic and I didn’t necessarily feel like it was particularly scientific. I was kind of hoping this stuff was working, it kind of seemed to be working, but frankly I wasn’t really sure if something I was doing with one person was actually going to work better than something I was doing with another person. So having just a more systematic approach that I can see and practice works better and gets results for other teachers. It has definitely improved my teaching.

Since joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, my guitar teaching business has improved basically from zero to 30 students, because I left the last business I was involved in, I moved to a new town, I didn’t have any students and it was a perfect opportunity to start again with a different outlook.

So it’s really changed everything about how I teach and how I think about the possibilities of teaching, and the possibilities of running a teaching business.

The main thing I was concerned about in various respects before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle was this idea of sustainability. So how do you make your life sustainable, how do you make your levels of energy sustainable, your creativity sustainable, your you know well-being sustainable… you can’t always be sprinting, there has to be enough space and regeneration, income and everything for it all to work. And I’ve been working in music in a sort of month to month way or job to job way and I just didn’t feel like it was sustainable. And I didn’t really know what I was doing wrong. Now I feel like I’m in charge of what my life is going to be like and that’s such a great feeling. And it gives me the best possible opportunity to make good on what potential I might have to offer and what the potential of people I work with is.

Joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle would be very helpful even if you're not earning that much as a teacher right now, because you just won’t make all the bad decisions in the beginning. You’ll learn how to set things up properly from the start. You won’t, I mean I wasted like 8 years, running a completely flawed business model, which did make some profit, but I really wish I had known then what I know now.

The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum helps enormously getting ore out of the calls in the sessions, because anything that’s not clear, you can ask somebody else and almost any query or issue or situation that arises with any student or parent or transaction or process or system, somebody else has already experienced. If you ask a question, experts from all around the world are going to get back to you within 24 hours saying hey do this don’t do that. And just saving you from not knowing what to do, not having a clue. It’s just brilliant.

Diana DeCabarrus, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

“The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program is just so massive. Everything that’s in it is just massive…ideas that I never in a thousand years would have thought of and I don’t know that I ever would have heard them from anyone else.”

…Ways to reduce the time that you are teaching, increase the amount of money that you are earning while taking care of your students in a way that positively affects their lives and their education.

After working with Tom, I noticed definite improvements in all the areas. I can finally take time to work on writing my own music for the first time in 20 years while my business grew by 500% over the last year.

Thank you Tom - you have totally changed my life!

Paul Tauterouff, Guitar Instructor and Professional Musician, New York, USA

“The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program is so valuable because of the amazing material and teaching ideas Tom introduces. This program is truly one of a kind. It teaches you how to teach, but more importantly how to run a 6 figure guitar teaching business. If you want to have total freedom and enjoy every second of your actual day job, meet amazing people and have a blast, this program is for you.”

I quit my day job only 3 months after joining the EGTIC, and I already earn twice as much teaching guitar and working 16 hours per week as I did in a 45 hour week as a candidate attorney and this will soon be much higher.

I am truly grateful for Tom sharing this information with us, but even more so that he awakens the giant within you to believe that you too can be a full time music teacher. Now I have the time to also pursue a full time music career and get the satisfaction of teaching other students.

George EngelbrechtVredenburg, South Africa

“Tom's Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle enabled me to make the transition from teaching at a music store (and giving the store a big piece of my income) to starting my own teaching studio.”

The methods Tom lays out for acquiring, obtaining and retaining students work extremely well--there is no other teacher in my area doing things the way I am-- both in the way I teach and the way I acquire students.

The increase in my income from teaching, the convenience of teaching out of my own studio and being able to build a teaching business that greatly benefits my students (and me) has been more worth the investment I made in the course. This is great stuff.

“For the past few years I’ve learned quite extensively from experts in the professional independent music teaching business, but what Tom is doing in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle is ABOVE AND BEYOND what these other experts are doing!!! He has all the pieces of the puzzle!”

The sessions are just jam-packed with very useful information, including new things that I haven't read or heard ELSEWHERE! Equally valuable are the pedagogical tips to help music students achieve their goals more quickly and more thoroughly.

I spent a long time dreaming about and wishing for the things I’d like to do in the music industry, but I never got around to do them. Now I’m starting to manifest my desires into reality, thanks to Tom!

Nancy Hutagalung, Professional Musician and Music Teacher, California, USA

“I have been amazed at each session with the quality and quantity of information provided. It has been very inspiring and I end the sessions looking forward to the next one.”

In addition, I was just thinking how much I'm getting out of the discussions that are taking place after the sessions. Many times, the other people in the program ask the same questions I have on my mind. This not only answers my question but it lets me know I'm not alone.

There are topics brought up that I had no prior thought of. This is extremely valuable and is enabling me to grow at a much faster rate than if I were just trying to grow my teaching business and abilities on my own.

It's like living through several years worth of experiences, if not more, in a matter of a couple of hours!!

“When you make the decision to teach guitar, everybody goes the obvious route: Go and get one student, then you and your student are sitting face to face. Some people might also get into group formats where they have 5 or 6 people, but Tom comes up with so many other formats that are totally innovative that even if you are in an area with high competition for guitar teachers, they would completely set you apart from everybody else because they are so different and so effective.”

I already knew and trusted Tom's knowledge. I knew that everything that he was going to teach me was pure gold. I might have started a website, I might have put some ads on Craigslist, I might have sent out some flyers and even if I did, I wouldn't really have known what to put in them and they would have looked just totally amateurish, like I didn't know what I was doing and just been totally ineffective. With the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, it takes all the unknowns out of the equation. It tells you what you need to do, how you need to do it and really gives you your business and overall professional look.

No matter where you are in your guitar teaching, whether you got one student or 50 students, there is something in it for you. Just the forum access alone is a wealth of information.

Chris Weyers, Seattle, WA, USA

“Not long ago, I was new to teaching guitar. I didn't know what to do or where to start.”

I knew many of the original members who first joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. I watched them using Tom's methods as they began attracting new students like crazy and becoming way better guitar teachers.

I realized it was time to get off my ass and begin learning from Tom too! I'm glad I did - because now I know 'how' to teach and earn good money doing it. I wish I would have joined earlier.

Dan Weiler, Illinois, USA

“I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle to see whether it would give me a kick in the pants... and IT DID! :) I've been able to launch a voice and career coaching business REALLY fast and get it making money really fast.”

I have students coming to me at an increasing pace and I'm building something that I couldn't have even imagined to build 6 months ago.

Adrienne Osborn, Professional Musician and Vocal Coach, Colorado, USA

“The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle taught me a teaching format, it taught me an approach, whether it be a marketing approach or just an individual approach - lesson questions, making contacts with people, converting people to become a student and then being able to provide these people more than they expect. I learned all these techniques from Tom.”

Our school, the Alaska Art and Music Project, is the 800 pound guitar gorilla in my area. I know a lot of people that are laid off right now... my business continues to grow.

Lee Gattenby, Guitar Teacher and Professional Musician, Alaska, USA

“I actually run a music school and I kind of thought I was on a good way with that school, and now, after listening to all the things I got so far, it just showed me that there is so much more that I can do and achieve with this school. This really opened my eyes.”

It's great. Tom has a lot of great new ideas.

Ike Biedermann, Guitar Teacher, Leipzig, Germany

“Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I was doing ok teaching, but I found myself getting to a point where I felt like I had to trade my time for money. I wanted to teach less hours to have more time to work on my music career and things like that.”

The program is great, I look forward to every session, I KNOW there is going to be something in there that is just massive. Anyone who implements all the stuff that they learn in this program is going to make A LOT of money and have a lot of control over their own time.

There is nowhere else where you could learn the strategies and ideas that Tom has.

Paul Tauterouff, Guitar Teacher, New York, USA

“It was about 6 months when I made a full transition from being a candidate lawyer into teaching guitar full time. That enabled me to free up a lot of my other time to pursue a career in music, practice guitar a lot. I'm making very good money, CONSISTENT money even though people think it isn't consistent, IT IS consistent. It's awesome!”

I was a total beginner when I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I never taught a lesson in my life. The program is totally relevant for a person who has never taught.

There's a lot of other teachers in my area. They can't get their business off the ground, because they are doing simply little things wrong. You can only learn these things from an expert, also in marketing and the business side of things.

George Engelbrecht, Vredenburg, South Africa

“When I very first started my guitar teaching business, I already knew about Tom. I knew that when I got into his program, it was such high quality that whatever effort I put in, I'd get it back out a hundred-fold and in my area there is some pretty well established competition. I knew that I needed help to overcome that.”

My guitar teaching has improved a lot, I've become more organized, my lessons are a lot more effective now.

If someone told me they had a limited budget when they joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I'd say that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get this kind of information and the sooner you get started, the sooner you start making money.

Bryan Connolly, Oroville, CA, USA

“I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and I started teaching right away. Tom made me do it! :)”

I'm about to start living my dream, working with music and live off music, it's really excellent. Like I said, this changed my life.

Mitja Zibert, Slovenia

"Since I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle with Tom Hess, my teaching has improved quite a lot."

Mainly the business part, but also the teaching indirectly via the business part, because it has taught me to better leverage my time and therefore bring more value to the students and I’ve grown myself as a person and as a teacher through that process… and I think the value for the students has grown much more than if I would have tried things out on my own basically gone by trial and error, so I’m very happy with the guidance I’ve got from Tom Hess.

Before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle with Tom Hess, I sort of lacked a sense of direction in my life. I knew I wanted to be a professional musician and a performing musician but I could not really find a job… a regular job that fit with my goals as a musician so I decided to start teaching and that has really changed my life in terms of both money but also time and freedom that I’ve gained through my business so that has really helped a lot.

Joining the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle as a brand new teacher with no experience which is what I was basically, will really give you a strong sense of direction of what to focus on while building the business and start teaching your students so that you focus on the right things and not the wrong things, so that you actually help your students and don’t hurt students I think is a huge difference.

The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum is so valuable. It’s totally unbelievable that it just goes for the prize as a platinum member of the Guitar Teachers Inner Circle. Many many things that I learned from Tom Hess have lead me to question how should I implement this in what way, how have other people done it… and I can always ask the forum and get really good answers and really good support to help me in my specific situation… how I should implement things and what things to focus on or what things to not focus on, so that has been very helpful.

As I communicate with the other members on the forum we really formed a very strong bond and we really support each other and help each other a lot just like real friends basically.

Gottfrid Norberg Waxin, Sundsvall, Västernorrland, Sweden

"When I found out about Tom Hess, my business was just kind of stagnant. I was a very typical guitar teacher making typical guitar teacher wages and making typical guitar teacher mistakes."

My guitar teaching skills have improved in that I once only believed that could teach a one on one lesson. I didn’t have the confidence that I could actually teach a roomful of people at the same time. And now I prefer that over any other method. My students prefer that over any other methods. I’ve never had one ask me to go back to the format the way I did it. And that’s probably the best I can do on that.

My guitar business has not only massive success with getting new students, retaining my students and my income has quadrupled and is continuing to grow.

A new teacher is welcomed by a community that is extremely supportive. There are resources available to them that they cannot get anywhere else, including access to people who are already very successful and very helpful in providing how they were successful. The tools and the resources provided in the program, the forum, are invaluable. The forum is maybe the best part. It is full of what we call gold, which is simply information from other guitar teachers explaining things that you might be having problems with. It also allows you to be helpful to other teachers who might be just starting or even ones that are struggling to get along. It’s very supportive and any time that there is any questions or any perhaps issues with anything related to our businesses from teaching to retention to getting students, every aspect of our business is talked about there and it’s just a very excellent community that I’ve never seen anywhere else.

It’s extremely inspiring to be around everyone involved in this program regardless whether they are already successful or if they are still just even building up. It allows me to both learn and teach and be supportive as well. So it’s not a one-sided deal at any point and it makes you feel very good to be part of that great community.

Ken Kaliszewski, Littleton, Colorado, USA

"Tom Hess has completely changed how I think about teaching guitar. How I approach it…. I won’t go into specifics. I’ll let people sign up for the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle if they want that."

But yeah he’s very much changed my entire approach in addition to giving me concrete strategies that I can implement immediately. Tom Hess has changed the way that I think about it, how I will come up with ideas. And I know that it works, because I’ve been a student of Tom Hess and I’ve got amazing results as a guitar student myself.

Teaching guitar for me was a proposition completely different from anything I had done before and so it was a little worrisome for me going into that. And I actually left a career in law to do that. So I wanted to make damn sure that I was studying with/learning from the best of the best which is Tom Hess.

Tom Hess has demonstrated success in this. Several multiple 6-figure earners… several more 6-figure earners. And Tom Hess has demonstrated success to me already as a guitar teacher. Again, I studied guitar with him for several years before I joined the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle so I’m very confident that he over delivers on everything that he promises.

If you are a guitar teacher who doesn’t have much teaching income to invest with... I’ve still got you beat. I have no teaching income. I am investing with my nest egg, a little savings I have tucked in the bank. The tattered remnants of my student loans are financing all of this. And I would do that the same way again in a heartbeat because I am not spending money so much as I am investing money right now. And the return on that investment is going… I mean, I’d be an idiot not to take advantage of that. If I thought I’m saving money by not investing it in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle I’m fooling myself. If I weren’t a part of this, I’d have no idea how to start. It would be trial and error and the process for making money would be so much slower. My retention rate would be so much lower and I would have absolutely no idea what I was doing approaching students. This investment is going to help me make money. All it takes is two students to cover the cost of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle program. And everything after that is gravy and gravy.

Leo Smith, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

"The fact that I even decided I’m going to teach again was huge… that’s a huge credit to Tom Hess."

I used to believe that because I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, which is massively populated with guitar teachers and musicians that “Oh it’s too hard to compete anyway”, and Tom Hess pointed out: No, you’ve got your thinking backwards, it’s actually a huge opportunity for you, because if you do everything I tell you to do, you're going to dominate that area. And I’ve seen other members of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle dominate their area. The other teachers, other music schools in their areas, they just don’t have a chance. It’s only a matter of time before some of these teachers literally are the… I wouldn’t say the only game in town, but they will be the biggest fish in the area. I have no doubt about that in my mind.

The forum, especially the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum, which is the forum I’m on very regularly, it really is a good place to get your thinking turned inside out and inverted and upside down and whatever. I’ve made at least 3 posts where I say something like, “Wow I can’t believe how awesome this is because I came here with my premise and I was thinking one thing” and people were saying “No, that’s not really correct the way you're looking at it”. So you get that social proof type of thing. And yeah it’s a great way for Tom Hess because he can’t be in two places at the same time, but with the forum, in a way he really is in a bunch of places at the same time, because you know everybody backs each other up. And if anybody says anything that the other members know isn’t true or isn’t quite accurate, they’ll come in and be like, “Well, yeah but here’s a more accurate way of saying what this other person is trying to tell you”. So it’s very, very valuable. It’s a very supportive community.

I need to mention it’s not just the other members of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle forum, but it’s Tom Hess himself, it’s Uli Latus. They come in and very generously augment the situation, add massive amounts of value to whatever people are struggling with, whether it’s their marketing or their curriculum, whatever it might be. I don’t think the value can be estimated. It’s whatever Tom Hess claims it is. You get help with anything you can think of. You make a flyer and you post a pdf, people look at it, they take the time, they give you massive amounts of advice.

Grant Shinto, La Vergne, Tennessee, USA

"Tom Hess has taught me more about teaching my own guitar students by breaking down the process of what it takes to show someone what they need to know in order to get better."

I’ve learned that it’s a lot less about teaching guitar but more about teaching the person. So when someone asks you what your method is, that really depends on the individual person themselves, because one person doesn’t fit into a method, the method has to fit the person. I wanted to seek help to build my own guitar teaching business, because I wanted to be in control of my own business. And teaching guitar is very rewarding, it’s something that you may not have experienced unless you’ve tried to teach guitar. But being able to do that as a career is very rewarding and you have lots of freedom in how you do that.

In the beginning, I could see that the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle was right for me, because I could see logically the steps laid out for me to be able to get where it was that I wanted to go. It was very real.

My guitar teaching skills have improved in a sense that now I have a process, from which how to teach students how to actually get better based on what it is that they’re trying to achieve. And also, each student leaves more motivated than when they came in. Because the students can see themselves getting better each lesson and because it’s obvious that they are making progress towards their ultimate goal, they are more motivated after each lesson.

By joining the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle, you’re provided with very good strategies of teaching and setting up your lessons and setting up your business to where acquiring just one more new student or just two more new students becomes very easy and will very easily cover the cost of being in the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle.

Just like anything else, being around the other guitar teachers who are more successful than you are, naturally drive you to be more successful yourself, because you see the things that they’re doing, the things that they are struggling with or the things that they have struggled with are things that you struggle with now. And that just pushes you to continue to want to be better and better. And so of course, it’s essential to be around the other successful guitar teachers.

Jonathan Boyd, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

"Tom Hess has definitely helped me with basically every aspect of teaching all my students, cause I had zero students before. I’d never taught before, so no teaching experience really."

What made me want to start is I wanted to look for an avenue where I could make money with music right away. Right. So I saw this program and I was actually a guitar student a while back, so I saw this actual program, the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle probably three, three years ago, right, before I actually started and actually applied what’s in the actual course. So, I found his program, realized that it talked about the success of its other clients and students and really decided that, ok this is probably the best way I’m going to be able to get started, get started fast, and get to where I want to go, cause I got other goals too. So, I want to build this thing fast.

I mean I took lessons with Tom Hess, so I already knew him. I already knew and felt like I could trust him, because he delivered as far as the instruction with lessons was concerned, so it was really easy for me to be like yep, I’m doing this. Also, I don’t really see anyone else with such a complete program, you know, they have bits and pieces, like yeah we’ll give you a couple students here and there or we’ll teach you how to get some students and fill up your schedule, but it really wasn’t like complete... didn’t have a whole package. To me the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle has everything you need, so it made much more sense to pay for something that had everything than to pay for something that had holes or gaps.

The thing that I found most attractive about the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle and really convinced me to join was the constant, “make 6-figures”, “make 6-figures”, cause it was very, you know, it’s an ambitious thing. It’s a very high income specially for guitar, so it’s like “oh yeah, let’s do that.” You know what I mean? If I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna go do that. Yeah. So, it’s probably the actual aim and the push and the expectation that he puts on his students that really, I found more attractive and why I joined in the first place.

It’s actually really cool to be in the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Circle with other people who are also really starting from where I’m at. I feel like it’s, you know, one thing to look at somebody who’s way, way far away and that’s cool from a different perspective, someone who’s making 6-figures, something like that, but it’s nice to feel like you’re not by yourself building a business and no one else is doing it at the same time. You know, the nice part about being with other people who are growing and maybe even started when I did, is you can kind of see where each other are as you develop. So it’s kind of a very encouraging thing.

Chris Glyde, Rochester, New York, USA

"Since I’ve started in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle, I’ve learned how to simplify things... basically how to make my life easier. As a teacher, I’ve learned how to not stress over things, how to apply the concepts that I’ve learned in the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle to my teaching which then benefits my students... they’re happier, they learn faster, they tell their friends, more students come and on and on and on."

Since I’ve started the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle, my business has improved mainly because I’m able to more effectively communicate to my students. That was a big thing for me. Now it’s just much easier to go further in depth and drill down and get to the root of the issue as opposed to just kind of glazing over something. Telling them, “oh well, you know that’s good enough, alright let’s move on to something else.” Now it’s like “Oh no no no, let’s go and let’s figure out what the real problem is, then let’s fix it. Which, I never had a teacher that did that for me. So being able to do that for someone else is great.

Joining Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle has paid me back in my life, it’s made my life better. I’m able to actually do what I’ve always dreamed of doing. I’m actually able to make a living with music.

Even if you don’t have a lot of money, investing in the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle is the smartest choice you’ll ever make, because you’ll make that money back much faster than you will doing what you’re doing now.

Being around guitar teachers who are more successful is extremely inspiring because you see the concepts of the layout by Tom Hess for the Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle and you see that these people just simply follow it. Just did what he said, and it worked, and they are successful.

The Elite Guitar Teacher’s Inner Circle forum is awesome. It’s not like certain other forums where you post something up and everyone just trashes your idea... just jumps on it... Everyone’s willing to help and you see people that are making 6-figures, high 6-figures that get right on, answer questions… they’re honest, they tell you what you need, they tell you what you need to hear not what you want to hear. Sometimes it’s not pretty, but if it helps you, then it’s great.

Byron Marks, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA

"You know, when you’re older, they say, “Don’t make the same mistakes that I have?” You would absolutely save yourself a lot of heartache and a lot of bad decisions, poor decisions, particularly in a business sense if you follow Tom Hess."

He's going to give you a blueprint and he’s going to give you the support through the other teachers and those instructors are going to say, “Hey, we’ve tried this this and this... this didn’t work... that didn’t work.”

It’s nice to be around people that are motivated and excited about something that you are as well, because in life in general, most people aren’t excited. Being a teacher at that level, being around these people, it elevates your game. You know you have to bring your best, or even if you think you’re bringing your best, you’re like, “Wow... I’ve got to double down.” I thought I was doing great, but now this guy in Australia... that’s a great idea... why am I not doing that? Why didn’t I think of that”. You know, so all of these things that, once you hear them, sound like it should just be a thought that you have. You’re like, “I never even considered that.” You know, that’s a unique opportunity. How are you going to meet these guys in Australia? Or England? Or Scotland? Or wherever else they’re from.. there are people from so many different places... Germany. ... And I’m sure that their circumstances are slightly different, but you’re not going to have that opportunity to glean that information in your daily life because you’re kind of in your region and you’re doing your day to day thing... so it’s an amazing opportunity. And if you don’t take advantage of the opportunity, shame on you... but as long as they don’t do it in DC right... so hold Tom to the don’t let anyone be in my region. So the DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia suburbs are mine thank you very much. :)

Jim Steed, Germantown, Maryland, USA

“After receiving the eCourse "How To Attract A Lot Of New Guitar Students", I immediately learned new ways to build my business.”

Through Tom's training, I learned how to attract more students in more effective ways, convert prospective students into ACTUAL students, and make money even when I'm not working (residual income).

The small amount of money I invested
in this toolkit is nothing compared to the results it has yielded for me and my business. I went from a trial and error approach to an effective geometric approach that gave me direction and confidence in my teaching business.

Eric Bourassa, Professional Music Teacher, Texas, USA

“The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle has helped me to build my website, to make my ads stick out more, to get a lot more leads in terms of guitar students - people are surprised about how many people contact me for guitar lessons and how quickly I've been able to build my business just in 2 or 3 months.”

You can start with pretty much no cost. If you are a new teacher, you can really start with very little and build up slowly or quickly depending on how well you implement things, but it doesn't cost a lot to start your business. You can really build a good business without a lot of extra investments in terms of money.

The Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle gave me the means to do what I wanted to do in life. It's really been a positive influence on all aspects of my life.

Lauren Bateman, Professional Musician, Boston, MA, USA

Additional Student Feedback

Thanks a lot for building this program and helping us to reach our ultimate dream.

The whole thing is really good - you opened my mind for some ideas. I like the way you explain things- everything is really clear to me. I don't really know what to say because these are the best lessons ever in my life- WHY?

Just wanted to say thank you so much for the sessions. It's so great that you spend a huge amount of time even though you can use this time for other things. The fact that you only charge 100 usd for this stuff per month when per hour you could be making 200 bucks easily. Just wanted to thank you for that. Btw...these sessions are awesome and doing them in a live setting gives a different aspect than just having it pre-recorded...

The EGTIC calls make me feel like I want to get up and DO something about my life.. Makes me want to plan a bunch of stuff to do… and when the time comes, I will do it all... it's slowly creeping there, so I think EGTIC is amazing

Before EGTIC, it took me a few years to recruit as many students as I did in the last couple of months, so all in all Thanks Tom for the great teachings... And thanks to everyone on this board for the support...

Tom's ability to generate innovative ideas that are highly effective and yet simple to implement never ceases to amaze me! The things that I have learned in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle completely transformed my approach to teaching, both on the educational and business side. If you are (thinking about) teaching guitar, if you want to help many musicians reach their goals, if you want to make a lot of money doing it, and if you want to gain control of your time; then this program will give you what you need to succeed.

Practice Generator Student Feedback

Guitar players give their feedback about the Practice Generator and explain how it helped them to make more progress practicing guitar.

“The biggest problem of everyone practicing is that at the beginning of the practice session you don't know exactly what to practice. Usually you are there with this big list of things you should be practicing and you don't know how much time to devote to this or that. The Practice Generator helps you doing that.”

The Practice Generator creates a schedule for you that tells you how much time you have to spend on each element. This is EXTREMELY invaluable because it takes out all the thinking from the process. You just need to know where you are, where you want to be and the Practice Generator tells you how much you need to practice each element, what day and with what frequency.

This helped me immensely. It's like night and day. Before I was practicing a lot of course, but the results came very slowly. After using the Practice Generator, everything came way faster because my practice was more balanced, following my goals.

“The Practice Generator is just awesome! I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without Practice Generator.”

Tom Hess put his whole depth of knowledge into this one program. To have that man’s knowledge all in one system on how long you should practice, when you should practice for, how frequently you should practice for. It’s just you know, amazing in my eyes, I mean, I didn’t have that knowledge. I had no idea how to create practice schedules. But it’s more than that. I use it to actually keep track of beats per minute. I see how quick I’m getting. I use all the notes, I jot down what I’ve practiced and how I’ve practiced it… to what backing track, and it’s just all in one place. It’s just nice, not to have… to open up a million and one documents and say alright here’s my practice schedule for this one… here’s this one… it’s all in one simple place. Even on the custom items. If there is something there that you just really want to put in, you can even choose how frequently you want to do it, how many days and how frequently you want to do it in the time schedule. So if you want it to take up to 50% of your time you can pick that, if you want to do less, you can choose less time.

Dan Mayhew, Stowmarket, England

“To me the Practice Generator is the thing that keeps me on track. If I don't have the Practice Generator, I drift a little and I start wandering off and do my own thing, but with the Practice Generator in front of you, it really pulls the focus right in. ... The Practice Generator is a real motivator and a real measure of progress.”

It gives me structure in my practicing which is something that on my own I probably wouldn't do. So Tom's Practice Generator does it for me. When I saw the new Practice Generator and I started using it, I realized 'This is it'! It puts me right back on track.

John Magee, San Francisco, California, USA

“There is no way I would quit using the Practice Generator because it helped that much!”

I'm focusing more when I'm actually working on a topic. Now, when I work on Improvisation for example for 20 minutes, whereas before I worked on it for an hour, I'm actually getting more A LOT more out of that 20 minutes than I did for the hour.

Tom knows what he is doing. He understands how much you should be practicing each item or aspect of your guitar playing. If someone else made a product like this, they would just assign a random amount of time and make it look like it was pre-determinded, whereas with Tom's Practice Generator, he knows how much you should be practicing each item.

Lori Simpson, Pensacola, Florida, USA

“Generally I have a very hard time making schedules and scheduling my practice time for myself. I was struggling with that for quite a long time.”

I would have a rough idea 'this is what I should be doing', but I was never completely sure and I also had a very hard time with it. What the Practice Generator has done for me is giving me that structure. It gives me an exact idea 'this is what I need to be practicing today'.

Tom knows what he is doing . He understands how much you should be practicing each item or aspect of your guitar playing. If someone else made a product like this, they would just assign a random amount of time and make it look like it was pre-determinded, whereas with Tom's Practice Generator, he knows how much you should be practicing each item.

Graeme Whitecross, Saskatoon, Canada

“The Practice Generator is about providing structure. I think knowing what to practice is a really important part of the overall picture of effective practice, but without structure it’s really easy to raffle on something that’s not important or to spend way too much time on a technique that you just don’t need to spend that much time on.”

It’s about efficiency, and metal guitar is all about efficiency, so getting the practice time that you have to maximize the throughput. Examples with the Practice Generator would be not over-working sweep picking, having the right slice of time… whether it’s 20 minutes or 40 minutes, depending on skill level, but not just like spending 3 hours doing the same thing. So it’s about efficiency and it’s about structure. Those can be difficult for me to provide for myself.

It’s not just a calculator, because you’re inputting things like how much experience you have with a technique, how familiar you are with it… as a result, you’ve got Tom’s experience in knowing that if you’re an advanced student you shouldn’t be training a certain technique more than a certain amount of time. It’s a really efficient timing mechanism, so if you get really into your practice, it’s going to tell you when you’re done and you can move onto the next thing. And it will incorporate rest periods, not overly long rest periods, you know 5 minutes or so to cool down between something and think about the next thing you’re going to work on. So I think that while you might look at Practice Generator and think “Oh, I can do this myself”… you’d be hard-pressed to consistently do it on your own. Again, consistency and efficiency, structure are things that a calculator doesn’t really give you.

Brandon Reinhart, Seattle, Washington, USA

“The Practice Generator is great… really really good. I find it’s so much easier to be able to get up, get your practice set for the day and you just have to look at the screen, the spreadsheet it can put it into, and just know exactly what you’ve got to do. I used to sit there for a long time and think, what should I do? You know.”

There’s so many things it was just overwhelming for me… it’s like should I be doing this, should I be doing that, then I’d be doing something and thinking about something else I should be doing. It just lays it out for you, so that’s great. You can set the time that you want, and it’s specific to what you want to work on too, so you can change it up each week… it just helps to give you structure to your practicing each day, so you know what you need to do. Even the little countdown timer, all that visual thing, but I think that makes a difference too… funny enough... to see that counting down you sort of think, ok I really got to use this time. I think if you’ve got less time, you use it better. So, just seeing that sort of ticking down and beeping at the end, sort of makes you think I’ve got to use this 10… 20 minutes whatever it might be and you get a lot done. I also find it great, because I use a similar thing with my students as well with the Practice Generator.

It’s going to ask you what you want to work on. Like you can select from present things that are in the program, techniques, songwriting, theory, lots of things. Or you can put in your own things that you want to work on, and then it’ll ask you a bunch of questions, whether it’s a long term, short term goal, whether or not you’re close to mastering this particular skill or concept you want to work on, or if it’s something that’s totally new to you… I think there’s a lot of advanced settings as well that you can select whether you want it to be something that comes up daily, or if it’s you know… you want it every second day… there’s a ton of things in there that you can do to customize it further. But you can save it and it spits out a schedule for you. It’s not something that’s just sort of, you know, been calculated off something that’s not relevant to you. You can see very specific times to work on things, and you can get… it just makes a lot of sense when you see it.

I recommend the Practice Generator because it’s going to save you time. It’s going to save you so much time. You’ll get more done in 20 minutes I think… that’s a minimum, than 2 hours. It’s very direct and it sets it all up for you, so you don’t have to sit there investing time into thinking about what to do, you just do it.

Simon Candy, Melbourne, Australia

“Before the Practice Generator, I might have been at worst, I wouldn’t have had a plan at all and a lot of my practice time would be fritted away kind of burning energy thinking about what to do next. At best, I might have had a plan for a practice session, but it would not have been based on anything.”

So certain items need to be practiced in different ways. Maybe some things are best practiced in big chunks, some things are best practiced in lots of small chunks separated out. The Practice Generator can take this into account. And it can plan out your whole next week of practices based on that.

So maybe this item based on Tom’s experience and how they programed it... it’ll know ok this item would be best in little chunks every other day is how he’s going to absorb this information best… these items he needs to be doing for an hour every day to be… to be getting it. Practice Generator takes care of all of that so even if I had a plan, I wouldn’t know why my plan was that way, it wouldn’t be based on anything. Whereas Practice Generator it’s all based on Tom Hess’s experience as a guitar teacher, which is formidable. So I went from often not having a plan and wasting a lot of time thinking about what to do to not only having a plan, but having a very intelligent plan to make the most of every second I spend practice guitar.

The Practice Generator takes into account how different items, different subjects should be practiced. And it does that because it is programmed with everything that Tom Hess has learned in his long career instructing guitar very successfully. So it’s not like the Practice Generator just divides up your time evenly between the items you're practicing, it takes into account how things need to be done. In order to do that yourself… I mean, assuming you could magic... you could snap your fingers and magically make a program that did what you want it to do... wouldn’t even get into having to program it yourself, you would need to have Tom Hess’s experience and success rate… I mean really Tom Hess’s understanding of how to learn guitar… how to master guitar in order to be able to create something like that which very few people… very few people do understand that. Very few people have that experience and that understanding so I don’t think there are many people who can create something like that and it wouldn’t be easy to do even if they could.

First and most, the Practice Generator will help you to make sure that every second of your practice time is organized, efficient and effective. It’s really easy to use. It does not take squat for time to set up, you’ll have your next week of practice planned out so you don’t have to think about it in a couple minutes. And it’s cheap. There’s really no reason not to do it. It costs maybe a few dollars a month for all that benefit. It’s a pretty obvious choice to me.

Leo Smith, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

“Before the Practice Generator, I knew that I had a lot of things to practice, but I had no way of really having an idea how much time should I spend on this one thing? How often should I do this one thing? And I’d spent so much time wondering that, that I wouldn’t practice guitar.”

So what the Guitar Practice Generator does is it makes it easy. You plug in the things you know you need to be working on, hit the button, there’s your schedule. You can sort it out depending on how much time you have and there’s your 8 days to practice, it’s right there. And so if you follow that, you’re going to be getting better. So there’s not that time waste of wondering what should I be doing?... How often should I be doing this? And really, it’d be easy to use that in your guitar teaching business too for your students. Just run them through the same program that you’re doing.

Neil McCammon, Maryville, Tennessee, USA

“Day one was just like 3 times better than any other practice… 5 hours of practicing can be cut into you know… 30 minutes… an hour. I’ve progressed so fast because of the Practice Generator.”

I don’t practice without the Practice Generator it’s just like you know… you’re focused all the time. You’re not just doing some random stuff, and then getting side-tracked, you know playing your favorite song or whatever… and 2 hours later you feel like whatever… nothing happened you know. It’s like 5 minutes you do this… 10 minutes you do this… and in those 5 minutes you feel improvement… you really feel it. It’s not like you sit there, and after like a week you get something… it’s like after 5 minutes.

Matteo Miller, San Diego, California, USA

“The thing that the Practice Generator does for me is it helps me to organize my schedule without me having to put a whole bunch of thought into how I’m going to break down the schedule. Since I’ve only been taking lessons with Tom for two years now, prior to that I just did all that myself… and I just never really could figure out how to get it in a way that worked well for me.”

I usually spent too much time thinking about how to organize my schedule. So the Practice Generator takes a lot of that time out of it, and just makes it easier for me to jump right into what I want to do.

The way I look at the Practice Generator, every time you choose a topic, there’s a series of questions that you have to answer that they use to kind of help you figure out how much time you should be spending on what particular area or another, and it’s really dependent upon what your goals are and what you’re trying to do on the guitar.

The Practice Generator is definitely a valuable tool to be used, because one, it’s going to help you organize your time… especially nowadays, we all have limited time, we all have a lot of commitments and things we have to do. So when you sit down to practice, you want to make sure that you’re getting the maximum amount of time out of that hour or two hours that you might have in a day. And the other thing is it helps you just stay organized. It helps you actually keep track of what you’ve done, so you can look back over the course of the last week and have a sense of you know what you did.

Andrew Tintle, Richmond, California, USA

“The Practice Generator has enabled me to be intensely more focused on the items I need practice on. Besides laying out the items you input into it in a succinct manner it has additional features that really drive it's effectiveness home.”

Prior to using the Practice Generator I would try to just catch up which ultimately led to me not practicing important items in my self-made schedule nearly as much. The Practice Generator holds me accountable so that never happens! Fumbling around without discipline has NOT paid off so if you’re not using The Practice Generator you’re practicing at your own peril!

Kwote One, Concord, California, USA

“I really like the Practice Generator because it helps me to not feel overwhelmed by the amount of material to practice.”

I tend to be one of those people that feels the need to completely master something before I move on to something else, and historically, that has inhibited my progress.

With the Practice Generator, I can structure my lesson time in a more reasonable fashion so that I can still work on material I have not yet mastered, without it being at the expense of my other lesson material. I think this tool has helped me improve immensely, because I am able to be more efficient when I practice.

Kristin Paris,New Hampshire, USA

“The Practice Generator takes the guesswork out of your practice, because you just punch in what you want to practice… it’s there, it punches out a time.”

It works with that whole geometric concept that Tom teaches where you learn from a little bit at a time, but you’re building up all areas of your playing abilities. So you’re not just improving your lead, you’re also doing rhythm, all the other stuff, integration, all other concepts as well...

For the price of it, it’s absolutely an invaluable tool.

Allen Hopgood, Gold Coast, Australia

“I really like the Practice Generator. I found it really fantastic to work with. There are so many things on the internet, so much stuff to work on, so you just feel lost.”

The Practice Generator is brilliant, it organized all the work and you just know what to do.

Nicholas Remy, Paris, France

“With the Practice Generator, it basically helped me improve by just helping me manage my time just better.”

The top reasons I recommend the Practice Generator would be for 1 – obviously what you have been doing hasn’t really been working for you and usually the results speak for themselves… and it really helps you better manage your time. I used to just do this: “Ok, I think I want to do scales today” and I would run through a scale that I normally do and I would get bored really quickly… and before I knew it, like an hour has gone by, and I just kind of wasted that whole hour. So, I mean, it’s very good for having the structure there instead of it kind of being all over the place. So that’d be one of the reasons.

The other reason too as I said before, just the organization. And all the different subcategories… I mean, a lot of people think you just have rhythm, music theory and just like two hand synchronization. But it had some stuff in there that I didn’t even think about using as practice. Like chord knowledge was another one that when I saw it I was like “Huh? Chord knowledge?” I’ve never ever thought about really like, I should do something just besides a G power chord or something like that. So I mean it definitely helps you practice not only in a timely manner, and sets your schedule hour by how many hours you have per week.

And you can have multiple ones which is cool too, I liked about it. I’ve got one that’s just my lead week, and I’ve got a rhythm week and then I’ve got a composition, theory week... because it saves the schedules that you make. So that alone is a really good, another top reason why I’d recommend it.

It not only gives you the structure of what you already know, but there may be some stuff in there that it’s going to tell you to practice that you may never thought of practicing.

John Paul Estrada, Morgan Hill, California, USA

“The Practice Generator basically takes a group of skill sets, breaks them up, and actually gives you a focused time or puts you in a timeline so you won’t spend too much time on one thing and you become top heavy on maybe technique when you also need to develop other skills like aural skills, songwriting, things like that… improvisation. That’s basically what the Practice Generator does, it’s a great tool.”

You put what you need in there, it sorts them out, it gives you an 8 day schedule and you go from there. So I think it’s a great tool to have. And from there you’ll progress a lot faster, because you’re hitting everything as far as what’s needed to be a good player if that’s your goal. And not just focusing on some things that you really like or... it’s some of your strengths, because you know a lot of people, myself included tend to lean towards strengths, and I’m just technique heavy... so when it bings off, you say ok, you need to move onto aural skills… you know it’s a great tool to use.

Leon Rahmann, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, USA

“Using the Practice Generator has helped me become a better guitar player faster in several ways.”

The main thing for me was... I’m an organized person. I made my own schedules, I was pretty organized... I had things divided well. I thought I did a good job at it. So I was practicing according to my schedule and I was doing ok. But then, when I used the Practice Generator, with Tom’s idea of what I should be practicing, when, and how often... it changed a lot of the things that I had thought were important, and made other things more important.

And what I noticed was that I was starting to improve quicker in some areas, well all the areas... even though I was spending less time on some… and some things that I was struggling with… I started to see some more progress because I was spending more time on it. So the Practice Generator was really critical in dividing my time properly and being more effective.

Maurice Richard, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

“I really enjoy the Practice Generator. It really lights a fire under me to stick with it and get the most out of it and I like the fact that it gives you a way of keeping track of how much time each practice item was worked on... plus it’s got a countdown timer, so I don’t even have to use my own timer, I can just use the program, it’s all self-contained.”

It really is addictive. Addictive in a good way. Addictive like I wanna keep practicing more. There's something about coming back to it and seeing like you know can I knock out today.

So there’s the addictive quality of it, which guarantees that you're going to get your money’s worth out of it if not a lot more. Then it’s got the time saving device. I’ll give you a for instance about how I learned to trust Tom Hess Music Corporation as my sole online source for information… and that was, I was reluctant for a number of years actually to invest, but I sent an e-mail… Tom Hess was sending e-mails to promote the Practice Generator, and I answered one of them and I said, you know, I had some questions about it... Part of his answer was I guarantee you if you start using this program, you will get addicted in a good way because you want to be a better guitar player. You will be using this thing. You’ll be practicing more. And I was like okay, you know it’s not a lot of money, I’ll try it. And within, not even two days, somewhere around a day and a half, I told my wife, I said this thing is exactly as awesome and addictive as Tom Hess said it was going to be. And I just was really really pleased. And that’s why it took less than 2 weeks to start signing up for correspondence lessons. And then when I started taking correspondence lessons, it wasn’t long before I realized everything Tom Hess is offering is very high in value.

Grant Shinto, La Vergne, Tennessee, USA

“The Practice Generator makes you much more organized than you would be without it really.”

Some people have their own methods for practicing and they say do this and this and this... Usually what they’ll do is repeat it over and over again every day... which is not bad. But the Practice Generator makes you do something different every day so it actually targets everything instead of just a few topics. Instead of saying “Ok, I’m just going to work on my technique for like 4 weeks” or something, and you do the same thing every day, which is good, you’re going to improve. But the Practice Generator gives you things that you wouldn’t work on in those 4 weeks, and it makes you do something different, and it targets a bunch of different things. It makes you grow faster, because it’s more of a geometric way of practicing than a linear way.

I would recommend the Practice Generator because it makes you very organized. It makes you practice in a geometric way, and it helps you reach your goals much faster than you would on your own.

Phil Henein, Huntington Beach, California, USA

Guitar Playing Accelerator Reviews

Guitar players from around the world give their reviews of the Guitar Playing Accelerator. Watch their videos below and scroll down the page to read additional reviews.

"The guitar playing accelerator is an unbelievable tool. It’s so thick and deep."

I have a long way to go that’s for sure, in anything that’s skills. It’s an interesting tool also to use conceptually for my students. The guitar Guitar Playing Accelerator tests you extensively on so many different topics that you can’t help but make progress. It gives you a ranking. You know where you are. It gives you a recommendation to what you need to do and then you go do it. And you test again, and gauge your progress from there.

I like the depth of the skills that it tests you on. It’s things that you don’t even think about and it’s very complete to the point it is also very humbling when you realize how much there is to know, and how much there is to still learn.

Ken Kaliszewski, Littleton, Colorado, USA

"The Guitar Playing Accelerator helps me become a better guitar player because I can track exactly where I am with my playing, how fast I can play, what I know, where my strengths and where my weaknesses lie, so I know what I need to work on week to week."

I absolutely love the bonus items that Tom Hess provides every month. I think they’re excellent value. It's more valuable than the price I pay for the Guitar Playing Accelerator itself.

Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia

"The Guitar Playing Accelerator helps me because it measures things that I never even though to measure. When you’re on the accelerator, it’s very quick, you see, “Ah I thought I knew this… I thought I knew this subject really well... this area really well” ... and either you do or you don’t. And when you get your final score, you see exactly how much work you have left to do, which can be excited or depressing."

The Guitar Playing Accelerator helps you make more progress because you see the areas that your deficient in. You see what’s weak, what needs to be improved and how to improve it.

The thing I like the most about the Guitar Playing Accelerator is that viewing things in ways or looking at the guitar in ways that I don’t when I’m just practicing regularly. So I’m doing chord inversions in weird parts of the neck makes me think okay, I have to be on top of what notes are, where looking at the fretboard and understanding and doing it quickly. So that’s something that on my own I’d have never done.

The top 3 reasons I recommend the Guitar Playing Accelerator is you’ll see an immediate jump up in everything... you’ll do it the first week and you’ll get your baseline for where you are. You’ll come back the very next week and without even realizing it, you’ll be better. You’ll know more. You’ll answer things faster. You’ll look at the guitar differently. You’ll just be better. And next week, you’ll be even better and then better and better. The more you keep doing it, it’s like a snowball effect.

Byron Marks, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA

"Using the guitar player accelerator has been awesome because there were a lot of areas that I didn’t know how to track or that I should even be tracking my results of that area, and so it’s made it a lot easier because now I have that knowledge."

Now I know where I’m getting better, how much I’m getting better, what areas I need to work on more, and I don’t have to ask myself why am I not getting better anymore, because when I look at the data that I have there, it becomes really easy to figure out where I need to go and what I need to do.

I recommend using the Guitar Playing Accelerator because: 1. If you don’t track what you’re doing with your guitar playing, you’re not going to be able to measure it, and you’re not going to be able to improve. And if you aren’t keeping an eye on those things, then you aren’t going to know what weaknesses you have. It’s going to be a lot harder to identify what weaknesses you have and if those weaknesses are preventing you from using the strengths in your playing. So without that, it really makes it hard to identify exactly what you need to do. The other one is the bonuses actually. The bonuses that we get with the Guitar Playing Accelerator are worth more than what you pay for the accelerator itself. So, the bonuses are huge and I love getting those cause they’re awesome.

Brad Litton, Vernal, Utah, USA

"The Guitar Playing Accelerator is very good tool to find the real weakness in your playing and your knowledge of music theory. And that was something that I couldn’t really evaluate myself."

And I found that the Guitar Playing Accelerator, really found out my true weakness and exactly what kind of level I were at. So it was very easy knowing that, what to focus on. So, therefore, I can implement stuff on the real level that I’m supposed to learn from and grow faster basically.

Gottfrid Norberg Waxin, Sundsvall, Västernorrland, Sweden

"The most helpful part of the Guitar Playing Accelerator is that you can actually see and monitor everything that you’re doing."

Everything from theory to chords to scales to technique - everything is there. You can measure it, and if you can measure it, you can get better. If you can’t measure it, you probably will have hard times improving on it. And on the other hand, it shows you all the different aspects of musicianship that you need to master in order to get better. And it kind of spotlights your weak points so you can work on them and get better as a whole musician and guitarist.

I like most all the different aspects of speed and how you can measure different, not just maximum speed like most players do, but you have all these subcategories of measuring speed which really helps you develop and grow into an awesome guitar player.

There are awesome bonus features which are pure gold... all the information in the bonuses. Plus, you get access to the forum and you can interact with all the like-minded people there and just talk to them, tell them your problems, what’s sort of bringing you down and so on, and this is probably the third really important part of being subscriber for the Guitar Playing Accelerator.

Jure Golobic, Ljubljana, Slovenia

"I am becoming a better guitar player faster with the Guitar Playing Accelerator basically because I know where my weaknesses are."

Most people can tell where their most obvious weaknesses are, but it’s nice when you think you’re really good at something and then you go and you look at it and you’re like oh ha, I gotta work on this. So, it makes it little bit more obvious what you need to work on. Whereas if you just try to kind of measure on a piece of paper, or just trying to measure by comparing you know like a recording, you can tell the difference, but it’s not as obvious. So it’s much more measured, it’s much more tested so you’re like wow... I need to work on that... so that’s what makes it fun.

The Guitar Playing Accelerator helps you make more progress because it shows you your biggest weaknesses and you can target those, work on those, chip those up, try to get them up to wherever your other skills are, and that will allow you to make more progress faster and not be so lop-sided. So it’s easier to make progress when you know exactly what your biggest weaknesses are and can improve them very fast.

What I like about the Guitar Playing Accelerator the most happens to be how it kind of lays out all your skills in kind of like a chart form so you can see where you’re at. I actually really like that chart aspect where it shows you all your stats at the same time so I can make sure I’m not getting super distracted by things making myself super lop-sided, because I have a tendency to do so.

Chris Glyde, Rochester, New York, USA

"The Guitar Playing Accelerator has made me aware of some really key weaknesses that I didn’t know that I had."

I’ve taken music exams before. Plenty of them. And I’ve never had my knowledge tested and tracked and fed back to me in the way that the accelerator does. So I think that knowing that those weaknesses exist and where they exist is going to be very helpful in pulling those areas up to the level where they need to be.

The Guitar Playing Accelerator helps me make more progress by essentially keeping me on point. It’s very easy to practice things that I enjoy doing like many guitarists… going back to the comfort zone kind of thing. When you’ve been playing for quite a long time - I’ve been playing for about 15 years - you learn a lot of songs, you learn to improvise a bit, you can get kind of a bit complacent with your skills… quite happy with what you can do. And you think that you’ve got your practice down. I’ve had a tendency to think that in the past so the way that it’s going to help me with practicing and getting results is keeping my time focused essentially. Because I’ve got limited time to practice the guitar of course. And that’s a huge thing, getting that efficiency of time… zeroing in on what’s really going to make the difference.

I think the Guitar Playing Accelerator is worth way more than it costs. I think it’ll help you be a better player. Well no, if you use it, you WILL become a better player, because it will point out your weaknesses to you that you’re not even aware of currently… that maybe your guitar teacher wouldn’t even be able to point out. That thing is so detailed. I think the third way that it will help you is by focusing your practice time and stopping you from wasting time doing things that you can already do. It’s going to challenge you to actively solve your weak points instead of just ignoring them like most guitarists do.

Christy Bannerman, Glasgow, Scotland

"The Guitar Playing Accelerator is comprehensive, and I have to be honest, when I first used it I didn’t even know that you could test the things that it was asking you to test."

The Guitar Playing Accelerator helps me make more progress because it helps me to track what I’m doing... And all the different areas that it makes you track in are helping you play things really, really well. And become a professional sounding player. And not just a sloppy sounding speed demon, which is what most veteran players are at least.

My favorite thing on the Guitar Playing Accelerator is the chord inversions. And the fretboard visualization I think it’s called, which is awesome. I didn’t realize I was so weak in those areas until I did the test and I saw my kind of level scores were quite low compared to what it could be. And then I got really competitive about it and I’d go to sleep at night trying to practice my fretboard visualizations, which I'd never thought to do before, so I could get better at the Guitar Playing Accelerator for the next week when I did the test. Weird experience, but it made me a better guitar player. It means that now when I jump on the guitar, I can see the chords and my theory knowledge is not just good in theory… I actually use it on the guitar. And when I’m playing with people, it’s like you don’t need to know your theory in your head, you need to know it boom in 5 seconds and then play it in session.

Darryl Powis, London, England

"One of the most important things about the Guitar Playing Accelerator is that right off the bat, it lets you know where you stand with your skills… whether it’s music theory or your technique like sweep picking, legato, scale sequences, integrating techniques..."

It does a good job of tracking that stuff and letting you know where you stand with it. And not only that, but it also points you in the right direction as to how to improve your needs, where your problem areas are and what you need to do to move forward with that so, yeah it’s not lessons but it’s as if you’re sort of getting Tom Hess's critique right there.

Ryan Mueller, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

"So the Guitar Playing Accelerator has really helped me with my guitar playing because it’s a good way to track your progress on the guitar, and not only that, there’s a lot of great bonus material that I’ve downloaded and listened to that comes goes along with it, so that in itself, the extra bonus materials, are really helpful in improving your guitar playing and making progress because you can’t really make progress unless you have a good way of tracking that, and the Guitar Playing Accelerator has like a leveling system which is pretty cool because you can actually see whether you are making improvements or not in different aspects of your playing."

So the Guitar Playing Accelerator helps you make more progress cause it tells you what you’re doing good and what things you need improvement on. So, say for example you’re doing really good at like your scales and your sequencing, but you’re doing really shit in music theory, it’ll tell you because your music theory score will be lower than, you know, maybe your scales or sequencing score. So it tells you that you should focus your guitar practice in a different way so that you’re not becoming unbalanced in your playing. So that’s a good way of keeping track of your playing.

Lauren Bateman, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

"It’s a great tracking tool. You cannot measure what you’re not tracking, so it’s a quantifiable measurable tool to do that."

Once you get into the guitar playing accelerator, there’s so many systems in there, so many sub-categories, you quickly realize there’s no way you can track that yourself.

You’re tracking your progress. Good or bad. ... No progress is good to know, just as good progress is good to know. Another reason would be to show your areas of weakness, so that instead of avoiding your areas of weakness, you start to improve on them. And the third: the extra value in the bonus content that he gives you on the side.

Peter Birchenough, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

HESSFEST Reviews

Tom Hess holds a HUGE event for his students every year called HESSFEST. See his students' reviews videos below and scroll down the page to see more reviews.

Coming to Hessfest man, I mean dude, my life is just changing day by day. My skills, my guitar playing coming here it like gets so much better each day that it… I don’t know how to explain this man… It’s just so freaking awesome being with all these people man. I love everybody man, on such a deep level… everybody. It’s not like having friends, it’s more like having family. Really care. Like literally it almost brings me to tears sometimes, the fact that I’m here you know.

Matteo Miller, San Diego, California, USA

Hessfest is a huge event. I mean, it’s a lot of fun, because you get to meet with other musicians and other people who are really, highly motivated. I mean, most of the other musicians I meet and talk to on a regular basis are just kind of dragging their feet. But when you come to Hessfest, it’s dozens and dozens of people who are highly motivated and want to be here, and want to become better and have a lot of fun. And the environment is really cool, everybody is here to help each other out. There’s not really a sense of competition or anything, and so it’s a really cool environment to be in as a musician away from you know, competition with other bands or other musicians at home. It’s a really exciting environment and it’s really unique.

It’s completely worth the cost, that’s for sure. And that’s why I did come again. Even my wife, she’s not as much of a musician as everybody else, she sings and she can play a little and she’s great at what she does. Even she comes and has a really good time, and enjoys being around everybody and getting to meet everybody. But because, you know each year the master classes and stuff we do are different, each year there are different people. It’s totally worth the money invested for it… I mean, tenfold. The things that I learned last year, that I’ve gone and taken and implemented have made me more money than what it cost to come… so it’s totally worth it.

Brad Litton, Vernal, Utah

It’s been pretty much amazing. Like everyone is amazing. Starting from the master classes, one on one lessons, I just had mine, was pretty amazing. I have a lot of practice. And especially the jamming at night after midnight, that’s totally amazing, because you can interact with all the other musicians and you get feedback, and you just have a lot of fun you know. And it’s like being with people who want to achieve the same thing but who are totally different. Like people coming from everywhere, not just the US, or Europe or Canada… but everywhere. I mean, I came from the Middle East from Lebanon, I flew like 5,000 miles just to be here so... It was really cool and worth every penny.

Mohamed Karim Koleilat, Beirut, Lebanon

Hessfest. Just the days before Hessfest, I had the feeling of being a child and waiting for Christmas presents. It was, the excitement even before I got here was like… just that was part of the cool experience. Then I actually got here, and it’s just constantly cool. You know, it’s just having fun all the time and learning like, just being in the room with all those musicians, and you started talking and go jamming at the hotel rooms. And you know, even if this was it, it would be worth it. And it’s only been three days. it just kicks ass!

My favorite part about Hessfest is coming around so many musicians that are all, like if they traveled from the other side of the Earth, they have a love for music and they’re very dedicated. Sometimes if you’re serious about music, you kind of feel like you’re alone on an island sometimes. And when you get here, you totally see yourself in many other people, in almost everybody… you know, it’s kind of really really cool to see so many other people that do the same as you do, or that are at a higher level than you are, and that’s something I really like about Hessfest, and it really opens your eyes to what’s possible in music. And of course, the interactions with Tom Hess, you get to talk with him on a personal level. It’s also very very cool. He’ll say very inspiring things and he helps out with all kinds of things and it’s great.

Magnus Gautestad, Norway

Hessfest is to me, it’s a very special event, because it’s not something you can sort of find in any city really around the world. It’s a sort of one of a kind thing. What’s really special about it is, the people there are very enthusiastic and passionate about music, and also all the actual program, the content is very, it’s very unique too, it’s not sort of standard text book stuff, it’s really interesting, exciting things that are taught. And it’s very inspiring to learn things like that and you kind of feel, you feel like you’ve learned something that you can’t just go and learn somewhere else. It’s a real good feeling.

It’s definitely worth the investment. You can’t sort of go to somewhere like this. Melbourne is a big city, but I know there’s nothing going on in Melbourne that’s like this. And it’s just and incredible environment, because there’s so many like-minded people, and you just have fun. That’s what it’s all about. You keep learning, but it’s just really fun because you’re surrounded by passionate people that are enthusiastic and share a lot of the interests you share and you just learn some really cool stuff, and you play a lot of guitar, and you have fun.

Chris Ball, Melbourne, Australia

"In a nutshell, I was FLOORED by this whole event. I can't imagine that it could have gone any better. I'm not sure really what I was expecting, but I can tell you that I came away feeling like my life has been changed in some significant way."

Nick Layton, Vancouver, Washington, USA

"We got to watch the master at work... Seeing Tom Hess play on a screen is one thing, seeing him play from about 25 cm away as it happened at one point is a whole different experience... The sheer sight of us all trying to analyse every micro-movement Tom Hess's hands were doing hardly leaving him any room to breath must have been absolutely hilarious from the outside... Imagine 40 people literally bending over-backwards to try and get the best possible angle on Tom Hess's hands as he's demonstrating a sweeping lick, but that was absolutely invaluable as an experience since you hardly get the chance to see players of that caliber from so close who are willing to share their experience and explain in minute details what they're doing and how they're doing it... And Tom Hess absolutely did..."

Chris Martins, France

Fun. People. Hessfest is great. I mean, coming and meeting all the people I talk to on the forum, people that help me out, or I give them help with whatever questions they have. It’s great to finally meet them, and just have a good time playing guitar and learning.

When Tom Hess teaches stuff it’s just… well I’ve had many guitar teachers besides Tom Hess, so when he teaches things, it’s mind-blowing, I mean he teaches things that others don’t teach, and so it’s exciting to learn new stuff and it’s very high quality.

Preston Howard, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Love Hessfest. It’s a place where all kinds of guitar fanatics get together, and people who are serious about guitar. That’s where you can meet up with them.

Ty Morgan, Phoenix, Arizona

I think one of the best things about Hessfest is the other students. I don’t know how to describe it being way more than I expected, but not only just the lectures and the information, but like I said, the other students, and meeting people from all over the world kind of surprised me. I kind of anticipated that, but not quite what I had expected. You know for me, I took lessons about a year and half ago, online lessons from Tom Hess and… I think his level will take me where I want to go. And for me to be here, is going to accomplish that goal. It’s going to kick me back… kick me in gear to do what I want to do. To me the Hessfest is covers the whole gambit. I was somewhat expecting to be intimidated by other great famous guitar players, and I find that I’m just kind of in the middle, kind of like everybody else. There are guys that are way better than me, there are guys, guys and gals that, you know are on my level. I don’t feel intimidated, I feel a lot more comfortable than I expected to be.

Michael Rowcliff, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

It’s been a life-changing experience. I got to meet Tom Hess which is fantastic. He’s given me a lot of tips. It’s definitely improved my guitar playing, just in these few days. And I’ve got to meet heaps of great people from all over the world. And it feels like everyone here is my friend. You know, I don’t feel like an outsider. I don’t feel like there are other outsiders here, everyone is on the same page here, and they’re excellent people.

Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia

The moment I heard about such an event or read about such an event… To me it was something completely new. I don’t care that it’s half way across the world… I wanted to be here at Hessfest since I heard about it.

So the moment I joined correspondence lessons with Tom Hess and I knew that I had the opportunity I wanted to be here every year since 2008. I even bought the ticket once, but I couldn’t make it unfortunately. But you know, now that I’m here, being in the same room with so many awesome, helpful people… I don’t have a community like this anywhere else. And you know, I would say, this is my life… all these people here at Hessfest. Meeting all these great guitar players and just drawing inspiration from all of them… it’s just massive for me.

Vishaal Kapoor, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I think Hessfest is probably one of the best places I’ve ever been to get together with a group of musicians. Mostly just a lot of like-minded people who have great attitudes and are just fun to be around. And having been a musician for almost 15 years now, that’s not an easy thing to come by.

I always walk away from every day feeling great, feeling excited about the next day and I always feel great, just I meet so many people every day. So that part of it is just the best part for me.

Andrew Tintle, Richmond, California, USA

"I always expect a lot from Tom Hess and he over delivers on a consistent basis. I am surprised that my face muscles are not sore from all of the smiling I did over the past week! Thank you Tom Hess for everything you have done for me and for yet another experience I will never forget!"

Paul Tauterouff, New York, USA

"Thank you Tom Hess! Thanks for making this happen! I had a blast in all possible ways. Meeting such talented, ultra cool people just blew my mind. All the Master Classes and one-on-one lessons were great, I learned and got so much out from those that it will take a while to digest everything. I feel that the HESSFEST gave me an inspiration boost for life!"

Risto Kivela, Illinois, USA

"This was truly an awesome event. Mega thanks to Tom Hess for putting this on, to the hardworking staff, and to all who attended. I must admit, when I first arrived, I expected I would feel like an outsider, being both a newbie to the event, and a non-guitarist, too. That melted away within minutes of meeting you all. By the time I left, it felt like family. Being a singer in a very guitar heavy environment, I got to learn the true meaning of the term "cross-pollenation." I was really surprised how much of the material I could apply directly to my own musical world. Tom Hess's "Pro-gression vs. Retro-gression" tip is going to affect every song I write from now on, and the inevitable rewrites of existing ones. Pretty freakin' WOW! Can't wait to see you all again next year!"

Jim Dix, Florida, USA

This is my second HESSFEST that I’ve attended and the first time I had no idea what I was in for and then it exceeded my expectations. And this is my second HESSFEST that I’ve attended, and once again it’s completely exceeded all my expectations.

The master classes are absolutely incredible. The content that’s provided is like no other content that I’ve ever been exposed to. The comradery amongst all the musicians is fantastic. There’s spontaneous jam sessions that just happen in the hallways here at this facility. Magnificent. Tom Hess hanging out after the event. Just hanging out in the hallway like one of the guys. That’s worth the price of admission right there.

HESSFEST is a lot of fun because it’s a unique collection of guitar, well not just guitar players cause we have a lot of other people that come that aren’t just guitar players... But it’s a really unique collection of people who are dedicated and passionate about music and whether it’s guitar playing or singing or having a music career or teaching business or whatever it is... ... you don’t find a group of people that are as positive and as dedicated as you do with the people that come to HESSFEST.

The master classes are always a lot of fun. I take pages and pages of notes, I learn lots of stuff and then I get to take that stuff home and teach it to my students too which is great. ... and it’s awesome to get to see other people get up and perform and do their lessons because I can learn from all that too. I mean I’ve had some many questions answered about my own guitar playing stuff just by watching someone else’s guitar lesson because they had a similar problem or they had a problem that I didn’t realize that I had. And so that gets solved just by watching that. Then of course, it’s a lot of fun to watch people get up and perform and just see how much talent is sitting in that one room... it’s pretty amazing.

Brad Litton, Vernal, Utah, USA

Guitar Teaching Super Summit International Reviews

"When I first heard of the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International, I immediately wanted to buy my ticket. Just to know that Tom Hess was putting on a program for guitar teachers that teaches them how to do everything from marketing to selling students and to filling out your schedule all the way and making 6-figures and all the way up to 7-figures. There wasn’t a question in my mind that I had to get into that program and buy my ticket right on the spot."

I really enjoy being coached by Tom Hess and learning from him because you know he’s always many, many steps ahead of you. He’s always studying. He’s an extremely smart guy. Probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met in person. And he’s always got a solution, no matter what step you’re at any step along the way. He knows how to break it down and give you the right answer that you need at any time.

The Guitar Teaching Super Summit International really really helped my guitar teaching business out because it gave me the systems, the standard operating procedures, the marketing tools, the sales tools and literally everything I needed to really improve my business and take it from low figure number to a really big, big number and give me a lot of freedom in what I want to do inside of my business, and it gave me the financial freedom to do whatever I want to do as well.

Being around other 6-figure earners or multiple 6-figure earners at the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International is really inspiring because you get to share ideas with tons of people who know exactly what you’re going through, they’ve already been through it, they help give you solutions to solve challenges or obstacles that are in your way of making your teaching business extremely better and it’s amazing just how much progress you make just from being able to talk in groups of people who already know how to overcome everything that you’re struggling with. So I picked up tons of advice being here, you know, just from other multiple 6-figure earning teachers that it helped me literally get through almost every obstacle that I had in my teaching business.

Would I come to the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International again? Yes. I’m definitely going to be at the next one.

Jacob Melling, Richland, Washington, USA

"When I first heard about this event, I knew that it was something that I needed to invest in because I was tired of my day job... and I was looking to do anything to get out of it. And I knew the Guitar Teacher Super Summit International would be a key component in getting me the information that I needed to do that and make that a reality."

It gives me freedom to do what I want, the time to invest into myself and the ability to make as much money as I fricking decide I’m able to make... because right now I’m selling my time. I’m stuck 40 hours a week... no matter what... doesn’t matter if there’s actually stuff to do... it’s the time that they want, not the results. And this is something where I’m going to be able to get paid for results instead of time.

I like to be coached most by Tom Hess because I know that what he says will work, because I’ve seen the evidence, I’ve seen many other guitar teachers before me succeed doing at what he says... and I know that if I just implement the stuff that the success will follow. It’s... it’s almost a guarantee.

My guitar teaching business will improve because of the Guitar Teacher Super Summit International because now I know so much more about marketing and about actually teaching and training my students and getting more students and at the same time leveraging all of my time to achieve everything and still keep my time free without overtaxing myself. That's going to be huge.

Being around Tom Hess’s other successful clients, all of these guitar teachers that make multiple 6-figures teaching every year is extremely inspiring. Even before the event started, just hanging out with some of the people here that Tom Hess has coached got me just on fire. I was ready to go back and dominate my area almost before the event even started.

As of right now, it is my plan to come to the guitar teacher super summit international every single time Tom Hess offers it again.

Chris Hirsch, Ruston, Louisiana, USA

"Tom Hess really cares about your progress and he wants to make sure that you're doing everything that he wants you to do because that’s how you’ll be successful."

And so I’ve enjoyed it for several years now, that it’s really cool to have someone like Tom Hess who not only just shows you a lot of cool things or teaches you about a lot of cool things but also makes sure that you do it and you master it and you make sure everything’s good whether that’s in your teaching business or in your guitar playing, whatever it is...

Attending the guitar teaching super summit event was really cool, because one: my wife came with me and she’s involved in the business and so it was good because we both were able to kind of put everything together and any holes that we had in our business or things that we’d overlooked or things that we had questions on, we were able to get fixed right away.

And a lot of it we actually got done here in the hotel, and I haven’t even got home yet… and we’ve already got a bunch of stuff done and ready to go, so that when we get home things are ready to go. Our employees have been notified of all the big changes that are coming up and how everything is going to be so much better, but really the big thing is, since we’ve been here the whole plan of how we’re going to get from where we are now to where we’re making 7-figures or 8-figures is like crystal clear now. It’s going to be super easy for us.

It was a lot of fun being around the other 6-figure earners, cause we had a lot of fun trading ideas and talking about what other people have tested in their businesses… what has worked for them… what hasn’t worked for them… what mistakes to avoid... And the higher up that we went up the ladder with you know, people like Kevin Downing who’s just unreal… it was really awesome to sit and hear a lot of these next level ideas and ways to be thinking and how to approach things. So it was awesome to be able to help each other out and really point that out because all of a sudden instead of it just being me at home and my wife with me working on the business and we’re doing it... all of sudden we had this big team. And a team of people who had tested things and had tried things and found what works. And so it’s a lot better when you have a bunch of people around you who are passionate and doing the same thing as you… and so that made it… that was cool. Just that alone was worth the event.

Brad Litton, Vernal, Utah, USA

"I’ve been teaching a reasonably long time. I’ve been teaching 20 years. And I’ve certainly learned things this week and the past few days that have blown what I do out of the water basically."

I mean I’ve now got so many things that I’m going to go back and change which will help my students immensely. In terms of the business side of things, I’ve got a very clear direction now, which was coming together previously but it’s really intensified and it brought me to absolute clarity as to what I need to do immediately when I get home. It’s, you know things that I’ve been procrastinating about a little bit that will become incredibly clear because of the help and advice here.

It’s been wonderful to meet people that I’ve been communicating with on the forum, who’ve been offering advice to myself and other people. To hear the way that the talk, the way they act, interact with people, the language that they use... And just being in a similar situation of a 6-figure earner... just being able to hear other people’s experiences and compare them with mine has been very interesting and inspiring as well.

Dylan Kay, Auckland, New Zealand

"I’ve been a guitar teacher for a couple years now. And I feel like I’ve been kind of staggering a little bit in my income and my financial situation and business in general. And I felt that this is a real good opportunity for me to grow further and have a really quick expansion in my business in a short period of time."

I like to be coached by Tom Hess mostly because he’s a very talented coach to begin with. He’s an expert in his area and he really knows what to look for in problems and in solutions. So when I talk to Tom Hess about my specific problems, I know that he will give me the most perfect solution to my problems in particular and I experience very fast results when I actually implement the ideas that he gives me.

Attending this event with Tom Hess has really opened my eyes to some of the weaknesses that I didn’t even know I had both personal and business-wise. And it has really given me a clear understanding of what to do next to grow as fast as possible. So I really, am really thankful for that part.

It is very inspiring to be around all these successful guitar teachers and business owners that share the kind of ideas that they have implemented themselves. They’ve been in my situation once and they can relate to the frustrations that I’ve went through and they have really good solutions and tips to give me how to you know solve my own problems that I’m having.

Tom Hess has taught me to inspire my students a lot more than I’ve done previously. And he has guided me in a way that sort of flows through me indirectly to my students. So by having Tom Hess as a coach and teacher and mentor, I have a pretty good understanding of what is desired of such as person… and I basically just reflect that upon my own students in my own personal way so that has been also very, very, very good to me.

Gottfrid Norberg Waxin, Sundsvall, Västernorrland, Sweden

“When I first heard about the Guitar Teaching Super Summit, I was stoked. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for to get some exact business training in my market cause there’s nothing like it that exists. So it was a no-brainer for me. It was a really easy decision.”

When you learn with Tom Hess, it’s the real deal. It’s not just some tricks and some tactics, but he gets into the very very specifics on every different topic. Whether it be on teaching and how to actually take someone from nothing to being an extremely good player... getting into the very intricacies in speed or whatnot... but then on the other hand on the business side of teaching guitar, of how to actually do it so you can run the business well and efficient and help your students and get more out of it for yourself.

The biggest thing about the Guitar Teaching Super Summit is that it gave me clarity. So I came in and had a lot of questions about the business side of it... that’s obviously why I was here, because there’s a lot of bottle-necks and hang-ups that I was having issues with and he gave me clarity on what I needed to do, how to do it and the structure of everything... how to get it done. So... Everything from the teaching side, the marketing, the business and how it runs... he gave me clarity on pretty much all of that.

It’s very inspiring to be around Tom Hess and all the other clients that are doing very well in their areas... and dominating in their areas. And it’s also very motivating because I don’t really think that they have anything that I don’t... and I should be at that level too... And so it’s… ... it’s humbling in a way but it’s also very motivating for me to get my act together and get to where I want to be.

I’d come to the Guitar Teaching Super Summit again in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even need... just tell me when and where and I’ll make it happen.

Preston Howard, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

"When I first heard about the Guitar Teaching Super Summit, I knew immediately that I wanted to purchase it. I mean, $3,000 is nothing compared to the information that I knew I was going to be getting."

I knew that if I spent $3,000 what I would be able to do with that, would be so much greater. So spending $3,000 was no question at all, because I knew the information I was going to get was going to be able to help me and make so much more money than just $3,000.

The reason I like learning from Tom Hess is: he’s a down to Earth guy, he’s approachable. He’s always given me very good advice, and I love the people he teaches too, so when you come to any of his events or even if you are on his forum, there’s just so much to learn. He really attracts a high quality group of people, so you're not just learning from Tom Hess, you’re also learning from all these other amazingly talented guitarists or successful business people around the world. So, it’s really great and whenever you have a question, Tom Hess will jump in and answer your question. And he’ll answer it so much more than what you were thinking, like you will ask a question and he will come back, and he will answer in like a million times more than you were ever expecting to get so...

The Guitar Teaching Super Summit - I can already see how it’s going to help my business. I’m a multi 6-figure earner right now for my business and it was a huge slap in the face… things that I need to do that are good to improve the business… so I’m super excited to get back and implement some of the things I’ve learned at the super summit, because I know it’s just going to make my business explode… I mean my business is already growing fast, and I know that when I go back home, I’m going to implement some of the stuff that we’ve learned here… the business is going to soar and we’re going to start opening up more than one location which is always nice.

So, being around other 6-figure teachers that Tom Hess has coached and helped is awesome. It’s really great to be able to throw ideas off of people because everyone has their own take on the business, and I feel like everyone excels at something in their business, so something I might be good at, someone else might have figured out a better way to do it, so it’s good to kind of bounce ideas off of other people and there’s some people here who make over half a million dollars in their businesses. So, that’s inspiring to be like, ah I can’t wait until I get to that point. So definitely there’s a whole motivation aspect and just the level of learning and the questions that we ask are very different. So, it’s great to be around other like-minded people cause in my area there’s not any guitar teachers that make like a 6-figure level.

Lauren Bateman, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

“The Guitar Teaching Super Summit International event has already set my mind in the right place and it has set me up to earn beyond what I thought was possible.”

I thought it was possible for me to reach 6-figures teaching, but now I know that it is possible for me to go beyond that to multiple 6-figures to 7-figures and it’s going to help me to get that in terms of the teaching business.

In terms of teaching, I know exactly what kind of mistakes that I was making previously and currently in my teaching business, and I know exactly how to correct those things and improve the results for my own students.

It sets me on fire. Like when I hear about those guys earning 6-figures and more, it just sets me on fire. I’m earning 6-figures in my own country which is not the same as in US dollars, but it’s pretty significant in my country, in Malaysia. It just makes me want to dominate the whole of Malaysia and just take my business to that level. If they can do it, then I can do it. There’s nothing special about anybody, I mean they’re all special people, but there’s nothing special inherently within their own abilities that make them reach that. And if it’s possible for them it’s possible for me. And I will make that happen. And just seeing other people like my peers make that happen, it just means that it’s totally possible for me.

I’m already planning to come to the next Guitar Teaching Super Summit International event for sure. I’m going to make it happen.

Vishaal Kapoor, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

"Over the years with working with Tom Hess I’ve developed relationship with him and it’s built on trust. I trust him. I know he’s an awesome guy. He knows what he’s doing. He’s an awesome teacher. He’s an awesome mentor, and that’s why I didn’t second question my decision to come here."

I like to be coached by Tom Hess most because he’s a role model. It’s really hard to find a guy that teaches what he does. I’ve studied a lot of books from teachers who don't live what they teach. They cannot be your role models. And everything Tom Hess does, you can see with other students and teachers all around the world that his principles and his strategies and tactics works, and this is basically the main reason I’m here, because it works, it gives you a lifestyle that it would take years to develop on your own, anything even similar to this kind of success.

By attending the Guitar Teachers Super Summit International, I gained a lot of really great tactics and strategies for developing all parts of business from teaching to marketing to sales. I’m still doing everything on my own and it’s really important that I’m good at everything because I cannot afford to not be great at marketing or not be great at sales or not be great at teaching. Right now, I have to do everything and it’s really important to have all the knowledge… to have all the details... to know what you need to know, because sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know and this is the hardest thing to kind of realize. But you gotta know everything if you want to be successful.

Jure Golobic, Ljubljana, Slovenia

"I’ve learned a lot of things in two days already that what I believe that I’m doing wrong… I’m like "oh no, now there a lot of changes I have to make…" but it’s exciting because at least now I have a blueprint or a partial blueprint at this point of what changes need to be made and I can already kind of sense how that’s going to affect my business in a positive way."

I think it’s wonderful. I’ve gone to seminars in other fields throughout my life and different parts of my career for financials services and other markets… and I always like being around motivated people. But when you can find motivated people that are in the music industry, that’s rare.

There’s so many things that have clicked in my brain, it’s almost a little overwhelming, because like oh I’ve got to change this… I’ve got to change that. But it’s not overwhelming in a negative way, it’s overwhelming like it kind of lights that fire in you and you’re like "I almost can’t wait to get home, I can’t wait to learn what we’re going to learn next, but I can’t wait to get home to get started on the things that I have to change."

Jim Steed, Germantown, Maryland, USA

“I thought it would be life changing and it’s definitely proved to be that with what I’ve experienced here. The system we got given by Tom, it basically laid the blueprint to become something I really want to be... a 6-figure guitar teacher."

I like to be coached by Tom Hess because he has a really good way of breaking down things into various components for you in a way that it makes you believe that you can actually do it if you just go through each step by step that he’s explained ,you’ll actually see results. And I can definitely attest to getting results from implementing this stuff that Tom Hess tells you. Whether that be with my own guitar playing or my teaching business.

My teaching business has definitely improved in terms of its bank balance even before coming to the super summit event, but I’m totally 100% confident that it will get me to 6-figures when I go home and implement the various systems that Tom has given us. And that would be the main thing. Never having to worry about a day job again. I’ve already phased out my day job and have been a part of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle… and now at a further stage coming here... And not just the information Tom gives you, but it’s the other member of this program. Guys that have gone up to 6-figures already and multiple 6-figure earners... actually getting to talk to them, ask them questions… it’s been fantastic! So it’s not just the information that we’ve received this week that’s fantastic… it’s actually meeting the other people and kind of realizing, hey normal people can do this… just ordinary everyday guys and women like me have just implemented what Tom Hess said and they’ve reached their goals. And I’m thoroughly confident I can do that as well.

It’s extremely inspiring. When you meet people like Antony, Simon, Jacob, Lauren, Tommaso… you see these people on the forum, but actually coming and meeting them in person, it’s fantastic listening to them, just watching what they do.

Michael Hanna, Larne, United Kingdom

"I’m always striving to become better as a musician and also as a teacher and I know that Tom Hess has always provided good quality programs and products for me which I’ve enjoyed and benefited from in the past… and I just kind of knew this was going to be a very cool thing and a life changing opportunity."

I like being coached by Tom Hess most because he delivers on his promise to get results. I’ve done plenty of things up to this point that show that you know the results are real. And I feel good about what I’m doing and the progress that I’m making… and that’s just all very cool.

There will be a lot of things that I’m going to want to kind of apply once I go back home. A lot of these strategies that I want to start taking action on. I think so far the thing that it’s helped me to get some clarity on a few points such as how to manage my time better and to not be distracted by things that don’t really matter that’s been kind of a problem for me. I’d say this… in this past year, past, several months. just getting distracted by other things and not being able to focus as well as I would’ve like to. So all that’s gone. That’s not going to be a problem here in the future.

It's very cool to be around some people who I consider the best of the best at what they do. They’re sharing lots of cool ideas with people like me and it’s very inspiring… I’m very happy for anybody who is successful and it’s very inspiring to me to see and to think that basically if they can do it, then I can do it to. I can set goals for myself and move toward achieving those goals. I think with the knowledge that I’m gaining, it’s going to help me move towards those goals much more quickly rather than just kind of struggling with some kind of hit or miss approach.

William Edmundson, Chattanooga, Tennessee

"The reason why I decided to invest thousands of dollars to travel all the way to Chicago from Massachusetts was because I know the track record of the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and the value that the Tom Hess program… Tom Hess’s programs have delivered to me specifically. And having been in the program for 2 years, and the results that I’ve gotten, I knew that this would be the absolute next level in my guitar teaching business. So for me it was a no-brainer."

There’s a few reasons why I like learning from Tom Hess and his programs. One: he’s very to the point and he doesn’t sugar-coat anything. He comes from a place of experience and expertise which is lacking in the market, especially the musicians’ world… a lot of people are out there just guessing and running in circles just trying to follow each other. The other thing I like about Tom is he’s very encouraging depending on your personality type. He knows how to push and he knows how to inspire as well.

You’ll get a lot out of working with Tom Hess, because he knows how to push your buttons in the right way. So you’ll always feel inspired and motivated through working with the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle.

Having attended the guitar teacher super summit event with Tom Hess, the first and most important thing is that it completely corrected my mindset and empowered it to achieve much more than I would have had I not come to the event. So even if I didn’t learn any new strategies any new teaching methods, any new business principles… if I just came here for day 1 and got the business mindset down… that was worth the price tag. On top of all that, I had the hands on training to get massive results for my students faster. From a business owner’s perspective, I now know how to create not just a job for myself, but a machine that’s going to work and add massive value for my students and at the same time creating a life style that I’m looking for.

Josh Beetler, Taunton, Massachusetts, USA

"I like to be coached by Tom Hess most because he fucking delivers. He just gets results. Tom Hess just gets results. And you know that’s just basically what we’re all here for. So you know there’s a lot of guys online that offer all sorts of courses but Tom Hess always delivers."

The Guitar Teaching Super Summit International has helped me to take my business to the next level. It’s given me the tools that I need to upgrade my business from a 6-figure level to a 7-figure level. And it’s just been very intense and we learn a lot and it’s been awesome. And I know exactly what to do now.

It’s fucking amazing, alright, to be in an environment where you have all of these super successful guitar teachers and you’re hanging out with each other, you’re sharing ideas, you’re helping each other, take each other’s business to the next level. It’s great. It really is. I am on so much fire right now, it’s unbelievable. It's inspiring... Huge. Hugely inspiring. It’s such a shame that it’s only once a year.

Marc Scholtemeijer, Haarlem, Netherlands

"I decided to invest a few thousand dollars to come to the Guitar Teaching Super Summit because I’ve been involved with Tom Hess for quite a while now and I know that Tom is one of the few guys that under-promises and over-delivers. In this day and age, there’s not many people that actually do that, it’s normally the other way around, but everything I’ve done with Tom Hess has been like that, that’s the experience."

One of the things I like about Tom Hess is: he doesn’t beat around the bush. He tells it like it is. You know, like he’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. I’ve had quite a few teachers you know like, when you talk about universities, school years, music teachers… He’s just good to be around. He’s serious when he wants to be serious. He gets the missions across quite well. And it’s not always serious either. There’s always a bit of fun in the air as well. So he makes you feel relaxed.

The Guitar Teaching Super Summit - I haven’t had time to implement anything yet, but I can see there’s a lot of stuff that’s not only going to benefit me but my students as well. And obviously it's going to benefit me financially, but it’s going to benefit the students I believe more than me. Which ultimately comes back to me anyway but yeah, it’s hard to explain in some ways but the whole thing that I’ve learned here is that all of my school back in New Zealand is going to benefit immensely.

One of the biggest things that I think about the Guitar Teaching Super Summit is that you’re within the like minds of other people that are doing the same thing. So there’s people here that are running big schools in their cities and because I’m sort of like the only big fish I suppose you could say in my little market, and then I get together with all the other big fishes from around the world, and all of a sudden we get this synergy, that never would happen otherwise. And it’s an uncanny sort of feeling in some ways because I know when I go back home, I’m going to be by myself again. So it’s sort of you know, it’s just an awesome feeling being here with so many great minds. And we’re all sort of expanding each other’s’ mindsets. And we’re going to go away from this with so many new ideas that can increase our turnovers in our school, it’ll increase retention rates for our school. But it’ll also increase retention rates for the students because they’ll be so fired up because I come back fired up. So it’s sort of a trickle-down effect.

I’ll definitely come to the Guitar Teaching Super Summit again in the future. I can see that it’s going to have to go on my regular calendar because what I’ve got out of this one is just really… there’s no words for it really… it’s just blown me away. It’s blown me away with all that’s going on. It’s not just the content that we get and things we discuss, but it’s the whole community that’s been created. You know, when you get a community that’s sort of all working together for a common goal… the results that come out of it just go through the roof. I can see this is happening. You can feel it. You can just feel it happening.

Kevin Downing, Palmerston North, New Zealand

"When I first heard about this event, I decided to jump on the opportunity because what jumped out at me was knowing that a lot of my business was going to be fixed so a lot of the holes in the structure of how I’m running my guitar school would be patched up and sured up so I can really be successful."

One of the main reasons that I like learning and being coached by Tom Hess is because a) he’s super confident at you know with what he knows... he may seem a little rough sometimes, but he really likes you, you can really tell that he cares about you and he knows what he’s talking about. You know he’s made money, he has made other people make money, be successful and that’s what it’s all about.

Hanging around Tom Hess and the other 6 and 7-figure teachers that are here is... I’ve been kind of star struck in a sense and grabbing anybody that I could any break that I could and just kind of trying to glean information and just knowledge and even that. So above and beyond, the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International with those conversations and just rubbing shoulders with everybody here... I’m so insanely motivated and inspired when I get back and everything is going to be just through the roof. I’ve also called my wife and told her a few of the things that were going on and she’s like jumping out of her skin. So it’s awesome.

I would absolutely come to the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International again in the future. No doubt, no question.

Marcus Diaz, Caldwell, New Jersey, USA

"I like to be coached by Tom Hess because he knows how to get me to do whatever he tells me to do. He knows how human nature works. He knows how to actually get things done. He knows how to solve every problem that could be made because he’s a real master in the area."

So I trust him and I'm sure that I will get the result whenever I just do whatever he tells me. Because he has so much proof that it works.

The ways that my teaching business has improved by attending the guitar teacher super summit international event with Tom Hess is that it has taken my mindset to the next level and I know that every battle must first be won in the mind. I have stronger believes and expectations of achieving it, that’s the first thing. Second thing is that by being around so many other successful teachers, you can get your own problems addressed directly or indirectly in many ways. So, you save a lot of time... so many of the things that I could have done through trial and error have been eliminated so I can move forward much, much quicker. That thing has immediately helped me.

It is very inspiring to be among the other 6-figure earners. I am also a 6-figure earner, and being around the other guys at my level or of course those who are now beyond my level to see what is the path, what things are coming up so I can make a strategy and be prepared so I can tackle these things even faster. And it's just a lot of fun to be around other like-minded people that we can talk about... we have so much in common... and just help each other be stronger... just be totally awesome. I will definitely 100% come to the super summit event in the future.

Magnus Gautestad, Kristiansand, Norway

"I really enjoy being coached by Tom Hess and I enjoy learning from him because he really knows what he’s doing, and if I follow what he tells me to do, I know it works, whether that’s with teaching or that’s with my guitar playing or other things that I work with him on. I know that if I just follow what I’m told to do, the results speak for themselves."

Having attended the Guitar Teaching Super Summit event, I know that I’m going to be able to implement so many cool things in my business. My students - I’ve already told them some of the excited things that we’re going to be doing and there are lots of other things behind the scenes that are going to enable me to grow from a medium-sized teaching business right now to something that is much, much bigger... much, much more impressive. .... Both for me, and also for helping all of my students to become awesome guitar players.

It’s really inspiring to be around all the other teachers here who are much, much more successful than I am... just in many areas it is inspiring, but it helps me see exactly what I can do to grow my business, what I can do to help with those students. And then any time I have a question, the people to ask, whether that’s a business question, a teaching question or any other kind of question... the people to ask are right there next to me in the sessions. I’m talking to them if we eat dinners and lunch and I can get any advice that I need.

Darryl Powis, London, England

"The event paid for itself in the first day. Well for one thing, I know he’s always going to provide excellent value. You know he’s going to go beyond what the price of the ticket is alone you know.

I could immediately tell that Tom Hess is the kind of guy that would be able to provide great value. He’s not all talk. He actually provides results."

I was never on the fence about being able to make a living out of guitar teaching. And I knew with Tom Hess’s training I’d be able to do it. And at the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International... I’ve been able to fill in a lot of the gaps that I knew that we definitely had learned in the EGTIC, but I just hadn’t quite implemented and I need that real ass-kicking.

The first thing that I’m going to be implementing immediately is the marketing aspect of my business. That’s something that’s definitely been a weak point for me... and one reason why I haven’t reached the potential I know that I can achieve. So I’ve found that not just getting the advice from Tom Hess on marketing, but being able to share ideas with the other attendees has been very very valuable.

It’s the best community I’ve ever been in. And I’m not joking... it really, it really is. Yeah. ... I found that I’m able to make friends with everyone here. A lot of people recognize each other straight away and you form instant bonds with a lot of people. So that’s really valuable to me.

Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia

"I was involved previously in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and I knew the value that was included just in the membership cost of that. When I heard that there was going to be an actual live event going on for 6 days, I knew, okay I need to be in on this, this is going to be really excellent information."

The reason I like being coached by Tom Hess is because he has these proven methods of getting the results that you know, other people don’t have the clout or the claims to be able to back up all this wonderful information that you’re going to receive. And all these tips that are going to help you out. So you know with Tom Hess, he’s trained all these other guitar teachers, he’s trained all these other guitar players... you see these results and you want to be those results. You want that to be you.

At the Guitar Teaching Super Summit with Tom Hess, I’ve learned so many new things to use, to implement, like within our business... I’m going to be getting more students. I have a better idea how to teach those students in several different ways to where I’m maximizing their potential as guitar players, I’m maximizing my potential to teach and make money. So, it’s win/win for everyone.

To see that other students of Tom Hess, other guitar teachers that are in the same profession as I am, to see their success, just motivates me even further. Hey, I can do this. You know, anybody can do this, they just need to follow Tom Hess’s advice. Use the information we’ve learned here at the Guitar Teaching Super Summit and go out there in the world and just dominate.

I’m certainly looking forward to the next time that there’s a Guitar Teaching Super Summit. I’d love to see more information, what Tom Hess has in store, more of his strategies and ideas for my business and for my teaching.

Neil Mccammon, Maryville, Tennessee, USA

"Tom Hess is doing something here that I don’t believe anyone else in the world is doing. He takes guitar teaching more seriously than anybody else. It’s a one of a kind program here. One of a kind ideas. It’s proven. I’ve already achieved some good success implementing what he’s taught me so far. So any chance to learn more from him... I’m there."

At the teaching summit, I’ve learned a lot about how to be a better teacher... how to run lessons and formats that actually produce better results for students and faster, how to help them get more out of their practice time, how to teach in innovative ways provide just incredible value. I wish that I could’ve been taught guitar in the way that I’m learning how to teach guitar at the super summit.

It is hugely inspiring to be around other 6-figure teachers here at the super summit. I feel like every conversation I’ve had with anybody here... anybody at all... anybody who’s here is really high quality. Someone who really cares about teaching and about their students and any little chat or little aside that I’ve had with anyone here has been just great sort of hints and tips and things to think about... ideas to action... and it’s highly motivating to be around people who are so serious themselves about their own teaching businesses and about helping their own students.

Christy Bannerman, Glasgow, Scotland

"I believe the mastermind sessions alone are going to help me improve my teaching and my teaching business. The event has been off the charts in terms of value and the vast vole of information and the accountability factor we get by being on the forum has just exponentially grown by coming to the event and meeting everybody in person."

You feel like even more inspired and accountable to implement and do what everybody else is doing and you really look up to them and think I want to get to where you’re at and it just seems to make it more real than just a bunch of online back and forth messages, you know, typed messages or whatever.

And even just networking during break time... I told one teacher last night who’s doing extremely well in the program... I told him "Thank you for your input, thank you for your advice and I’ve really benefited from it." And this person said “Did you really learn that much from what little conversations we had?” and I said “Yes.” said “Sometimes it would just be one sentence. I’d hear you say one thing that was beyond my thinking based on where I’m at.” And it would just make me very thought-provoking and insightful.

So I told my wife, I said: “Some of these conversations... just being in the same room with some of these people has made this whole trip to all of these events worth it.”

Tom Hess over-delivered on what he was promoting with the guitar teacher super summit international. Absolutely. Over-delivered.

Grant Shinto, La Vergne, Tennessee, USA

"I like to be coached by Tom Hess because he knows how to get you where you want to go and there are very few who people do. He’s very professional about what he does, and when you have an actual question or you have some sort of objective, he usually has some very very good points that you will not get anywhere else."

My business and my teaching has improved from the guitar teaching super summit in many many ways. I can improve my website here which will get me more conversions and more leads. I will have of course again more conversions, more students. Improving retention with better teaching techniques and skills that I did not have before. As well as being able to prepare my students with a really strong mindset, which is probably the most critical thing.

It is very inspiring to be around Tom Hess’s other students who already earn you know 6-figures or more... multi-six figures. And it’s cool to see what they’re doing and it also makes it a lot easier to see yourself in that position because many of them started off with either 0 students or a very low count of students and worked their way up with this program. So it’s very nice to be around that type of reminder almost.

I’ve only been here for a couple of days and I already feel like I’ve gotten more than what I paid for. So it was a very very very good purchase in my opinion.

Chris Glyde, Rochester, New York, USA

"As a result of attending the Guitar Teacher Super Summit event, my guitar teaching business is going to grow exponentially. It’s going to be far easier to apply all the concepts that we learned because of the way we learned them. It’s going to be much easier than I thought it was going to be... which is great."

It's amazingly inspiring being around people who have basically applied all these concepts that we’re learning and had wild success with it. It’s great cause it’s proof that okay all you have to do is just do the work. As Tom Hess says... just do the work. And the results are going to happen.

Would I come to the guitar teacher super summit international again? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Just take my money now.

Byron Marks, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA

"I like to be coached by Tom Hess because he is a professional and he knows this stuff, he has done it himself before so he knows how to get his students to the highest level."

The Guitar Teacher’s Super Summit International has helped me to think much bigger things on the long term that I thought would be possible for me. So it definitely has made me to really believe that I can do a lot bigger things and achieve a lot bigger things in my guitar business than I thought would be possible.

Oh yeah it’s really inspiring to be around these people because they have already achieved a high level in their guitar business, so it really convinces me that I can do it as well.

Joni Kosonen, Helsinki, Finland

"After my time at the Guitar Teaching Super Summit International, my mindset is stronger than it was before. I’m clearer on what I need to do and how I need to do it than I was before. And I’m so fired up to get home and do it that I almost skipped HESSFEST and Music Career Money Magnet."

Although I’m glad that I didn’t. The opportunity to be around 6-figure earning teachers... and multiple 6-figure earning teachers... or even 5-figure earners that are farther along than I am, which is basically all of them at this point... is definitely one of the many very strong facets of the Elite Guitar Teaching Inner Circle. I don’t know anyone where I’m from who’s even a particularly serious musician, let alone a serious or successful guitar teacher, so I don’t have any sort of peer group like that outside of Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle and you know, when I’m at home, I have to kind of fight that constantly because it’s this influence that kind of drags me away from my goals, whereas when I’m with Tom Hess, when I’m with the other teachers in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle or even when I’m just talking with them online, it’s a boost to my mindset, it’s a boost to my motivation and I don’t get that anywhere else.

Leo Smith, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

"When I first heard about it, my business was at a place where I was doing well, but I was in a bit of a standstill, and in a place where I needed something else to keep it going. I needed some new motivation. I needed like a turbo charge to have it kick in again and so I decided to come and it has been exactly that."

I like to be coached most by Tom Hess for the insight that he has into the teaching business... The fact that he is successful and teachers who also work with him are very successful, are one part of it. But interacting with the other teachers here has been incredible. It’s been probably - I can’t say one’s better than the other - but man they are both pretty close... it’s but very valuable to me.

When I got here on Monday night, I was already inspired by being with the other teachers and since then it’s just grown. The first night I was here, I spent some time hanging around and every day I got to lunch with them, I take every break with them, I have dinner with them and it’s like nonstop motivation and inspiration. It’s fabulous.

I will most definitely be at the next event.

Ken Kaliszewski, Littleton, Colorado, USA

Ultimate Creativity And Guitar Soloing Mastery Training Week Reviews

"I like learning from Tom Hess because he just covers everything, things that you just don't think of. I've been playing 20 years and I just feel like I'm now, after this week, starting to really get how to practice properly and get the most of it every minute that you put into this."

Tom Hess is, in my opinion, the best guitar teacher on the planet. It wouldn't be anyone else out there that can train you like he can.

Simon CandyMelbourne, Australia

"I already take Correspondence Guitar Lessons with Tom Hess and that already has advanced my playing ten-fold, if not more, it was a no-brainer it was going to work."

After the sessions I go back to my room and play and it's like WOW, I can't believe I figured that out and improved so quick. It definitely works.

It's a great thing and I think everyone should experience it at least once.

Fretboard Domination Bootcamp Reviews

“Before I came to the Fretboard Domination Coaching event, I knew some scales, some mode patterns, I knew the pentatonic patterns, but I didn’t really know how to connect them.”

But now, after only two days of fretboard domination training, I have more options on how to connect different, not just patterns, but I have more options in how to use notes on the fretboard in general that I never had before, and strategies so I can practice that stuff, and so I can get better at it at home and master it.

Tom Hess’s knowledge of the fretboard, theory and Tommaso Zillio’s knowledge as well, with those two together, I knew that they were going to have a kickass event. I knew that they were going to come up with the best strategies to help me learn the fretboard the fastest. And, you know, learning the fretboard is critical for any guitar player to be able to play and do what you want freely. So, to me it was a no brainer. I knew they would provide and that’s why I thought it was going to be kickass.

Maurice Richard, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Total Guitar Mastery Training Week Reviews

“I knew that Total Guitar Mastery was going to be awesome because I’ve taken guitar lessons from Tom through correspondence, and I’ve been in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle for about a year now. I just knew from the quality of the other material that I’ve received from him and the other products that I’ve bought from him that everything he does is pretty awesome.”

The main reasons that I like learning from the other trainers and from Tom at the Total Guitar Mastery Training Week, is because they are experts in their field, and when they observe what I’m doing, they can very quickly diagnose what’s going on incorrectly and tell me exactly what I need to do to fix my problem. I’ve seen them solve my problems far quicker than I ever could have by myself. I’ve learned how to diagnose my own problems because of having them diagnose my problems. I’ve been able to get rid of a lot of tension in my playing, both in my left hand and in my right hand. I’ve seen my speed increase. And I’ve actually learned how to train myself when I leave here, which might be the most valuable part of this whole training event.

Being around a bunch of other really serious guitar players is very inspiring, and I’ve seen myself improve, but I’ve also talked to a lot of the other guys and they’ve expressed the same thing… that they’ve been improving a lot.

Nicholas Anderson, Olympia, Washington, USA

"I like learning from Tom because he just covers everything, things that you just don't think of. I've been playing 20 years and I just feel like I'm now, after this week, starting to really get how to practice properly and get the most of it every minute that you put into this."

Tom is, in my opinion, the best guitar teacher on the planet. It wouldn't be anyone else out there that can train you like he can.

Simon CandyMelbourne, Australia

"I already take Correspondence Guitar Lessons with Tom and that already has advanced my playing ten-fold, if not more, it was a no-brainer it was going to work."

After the sessions I go back to my room and play and it's like WOW, I can't believe I figured that out and improved so quick. It definitely works.

It's a great thing and I think everyone should experience it at least once.

Joseph Murphy, College Point, NY, USA

“I went to Crystal Lake for the event last year and immediately when I saw this on Tom s web page I knew this was exactly what I needed to get my guitar playing up and going where I want it to be.”

This year’s event has been crazy to be honest. All the expectations and a lot more than that has been fulfilled during these days here in Crystal Lake, and it’s just been extremely overwhelming, the teachers that are here are so professional. Tom is a great guitar teacher. Now I know when I get back home… I know how to push myself to achieve my goals. The second best thing, besides getting to know the teachers, is to have inspired students around you… I don’t think you can find an environment like this event anywhere in the world. This is the place to be if you want to hang out with good guys, motivated guys and excellent guitar players in such different musical interests… so it’s fantastic.

This has been a lifetime experience for me. It’s life-changing....so I will definitely come back.

Sigve Solbakken, Bergen, Norway

“You’re dealing with one of the best guitar teachers in the world, maybe the best. You can’t get that just anywhere in the world.”

I already had a pretty good idea that Tom was very credible, and that he was able to deliver what he said or more than he even said. I took one look at the program and initially thought: “$3,000… No” and then I kept looking at it more and more, like “I can’t res…there’s no way I can resist”.

Absolutely one of the biggest problems I had that was driving me insane was excess finger motion, particularly in my little finger… it really was all the fingers. It really was all the fingers, and that has improved tremendously in just… now it’s been 5 days. To the point where it’s not where it’s going to end up being. But it’s so much better. I mean, it’s dramatic. It’s just a dramatic improvement. And it’s…working with Tom and the rest of the trainers just borderline fixed it.

Mike Larson, Milwaukee, USA

“At the risk of sounding a bit cheesy, everything Tom Hess does is pretty awesome. I’ve been through a number of his programs and each one has helped totally.”

When Tom is teaching guitar stuff, you kind of know it’s the right way of doing things. He’s taught so many people, and you see the results. You see the results of the people he’s taught and they’re amazing players. So you know if you implement the things that he tells you to, you’re going to get the results you want. Being here for 7 days so far, I can feel that my playing has improved. I haven’t had the chance to plug into an amp yet and test it out, but I can just feel that my hand positions are better. I feel much more relaxed. In fact, being more relaxed is the main thing. I have a lot of tension in my playing and feel that that’s all but completely gone.

It’s very inspiring being around those people. If there are any moments of doubt… “I can’t do this” you look at the people who are doing and you think, “Well, if they can do it, I can do it too.”

James Krumbock, Winchester, England

“When I first heard about the Total Guitar Mastery Training Week that Tom was putting together I knew it was going to be great. I’ve experienced a number of his products before, and actually I’ve been to Hessfest in the past. He always over-delivers, he gives amazing content. Getting the opportunity to spend 10 hours a day with him, specifically on guitar training, I couldn’t pass that up.”

Tom goes into such depth with concepts that he actually teaches. Many other teachers and trainers that I’ve worked with in the past, they kind of work on a surface level looking at many of the symptoms of problems that I’m working with. Tom goes straight for the core causes of why I’m struggling whether that’s with guitar, or teaching or even my music career.

So I’ve noticed a number of improvements… significant improvements in my playing since finishing the Total Guitar Mastery Training Week, specifically the speed at which I play, accuracy, clarity is through the roof... That’s one of the most important things I’ve gained, I’ve really cleaned up my playing with what I’m doing, and I’ve got a pile of new ideas and strategies that I can implements at home for the next several years.

Being a teacher, getting the opportunity to observe and first-hand experience the type of teaching strategies and formats that Tom uses to get massive results from his own students is like getting twice as much out of this event than if I was just a guitarist, if not more. I’m already thinking of ideas of how I can take those concepts and start using them with my own students and training them.

I’m looking forward to the next one.

Graehme Floyd, London, Ontario, Canada

“When I heard that Tom was doing Total Guitar Mastery training, I knew I had to be there, because every other program I’ve been in of his has delivered 10 times the amount of value versus what you actually pay. So, anytime Tom is selling a program, I know I’m going to get massive value compared to the money I’ve paid.”

You know the reason I like learning from Tom is because he’s a master at what he does. The other teachers he brings in to help out at the event and you know help all the students get the value out of it, they’re also masters, I mean, they’re amazing musicians. They really know their stuff inside and out. You know that any challenge you have, problem, frustration, they’re going to fix it.

It's inspiring to be around a group of guitarist from all around the world who are really dedicated to playing guitar and spend a lot of time playing guitar. You know you see these people…. You come here and you see these people who are much better than the average musician that you see around your home town. When you show up here and you see that everybody is pretty good or at their specific spot in the journey it really inspires and motivates you to drive harder to become even better as a guitar player. It’s also very rewarding because everybody helps each other out, boosts each other, and pushes each other along to get even more progress.

I’ll come to every Total Guitar Mastery Training Week that Tom ever has.

Jacob Melling, Richland, Washington

“The Total Guitar Mastery Training Week has directly improved my guitar in a lot of ways.”

To be really concrete and specific, I had spent a lot of time prior to Total Guitar Mastery working on my arpeggios and sweep picking. I love heavy metal. I really like technical metal, and it’s a really important technique in that style of music. So when I got here, I still didn’t realize how many small mistakes I was making and how much tax I was paying for not fixing those mistakes. So tension. We went through some really amazing tension reduction techniques, and as a result my left hand is able to move much more quickly. Small things that the instructors, as they were working with group, noticed and pointed out that I have been working on refining over the course of the I don’t know 60 something hours of practice that we got at the Total Guitar Mastery Training Week... observed practice. I’ve weeded those things out. And I can sweep more cleanly. I can sweep more quickly. And I can do it immediately. I still think it will take more practice to get it consistent. But just going from a dead stop to incorporating an arpeggio or moving from a completely unrelated place on the neck… and that feels pretty good. That’s like a pretty good confirmation of the work that’s been done. And that’s like one thing. Like my legato has improved. My picking has improved. So yeah, I’m pretty excited actually, yeah.